The Dirtbag Dad

Ansel, Orville, and Georgia

A dozen decades ago, February 20, 1902, a being named Ansel Adams came into this world.

As some may know, Adams has long been a personal seminal voice. A deeply complex, spiritual, and thoughtful human being, his work sowed an early seed-muse that lead me—a shy and anxious New England boy—to discover the richness of the earth. Both he, along with the writer Colin Fletcher, opened my eyes. They compelled me to seek out my home of homes… the western reaches of North America. Adam’s intrinsic nature is easily recognizable via his work; if one digs into his life story, the complex beauty of his expression as a human being become all the more powerfully touching.

When I was 12 my mom signed me up for a photography class with Ron Rosenstock during the summer holiday. Held at the Worcester (Massachusetts) Craft Center, it’s my mom’s particularly intuitive genius that she knew herein lay a place for me. Ron taught us the Zone System for exposure and the art of shaping prints via “burning and dodging.” We learned that there is much more to capturing an image than the simple act of “pointing and shooting.” 

Still, beyond the technical details of making a photograph, Ron exposed us to seminal photographers. An affinity for Adam’s soul stirring work was born. 

I revere many of his creations… it is hard to choose a particular favorite. Yet, one speaks to me above the others. It’s not, and this surprised even me, a landscape, but rather, a humanscape. His image of Georgia O’Keeffe and Orville Cox is profoundly moving.

It encapsulates an ineffable expression of humanity, big lands, big skies. That look she holds: the wise, knowing, playful face of the beautiful krone. You just want to know her deeply. Intuitively, you know a wealth of knowledge and beauty lay within. How Adams captured this moment… I don’t need to know. I am simply grateful that he did.

"Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film. Your bright eyes and easy smile is your museum." —Ansel Adams

Today’s Meditation

Today’s Meditation

Diving into the deep parts,
Seeing what lies in-between.
In the place that is Ajna
and lying directly in front of me.
Blind to this world,
Though peering into others.

Vastness.
Incomprehensible emptiness, nothingness.
Space.
Ineffably dense matter.
Sub-atomic, nuclear, molecular,
Planetary, celestial, galactic.
Infinite space in the places in-between. 
One hundred billion stars in one hundred billion galaxies.

Colder than Kelvin.
Hot than Hades.
And everything in-between.

The harmonic synchronicity of light and dark.
The dawns and dusks of deserts and mountains.
Black and white.
One and zero.
Yes and no.
On and off.
Female and male.
Yin and yang.
Being and nothingness.
A Ner Tamid (אור נצחי) in the vast darkness.

Two souls dancing,
This time a woman, a man.
A blurred creation morphing into connection.
Yet only for a moment.
They separate.
They must separate.
They are their own true selves.

And so it goes.
The cycle continues.
Not eternally, only as needed.
No more, no less.
This is not easy,
But very possible.

Never two become one, 
Rather two spirits,
Walking alongside one another,
Sharing this long, complex journey.

Altadena, California
January 5, 2020

The Odyssey Contained (in part) Within a Contemporary Poem

There is also a wonderful film about another Odyssey, The Way with Martin Sheen and directed by his son, Emilio Estevez.

The Way

Friend, I have lost the way.
The way leads on.
Is there another way?
The way is one.
I must retrace the track.
It's lost and gone.
Back, I must travel back!
None goes there, none.
Then I'll make here my place,
(The road leads on),
Stand still and set my face,
(The road leaps on),
Stay here, for ever stay.
None stays here, none.
I cannot find the way.
The way leads on.
Oh places I have passed!
That journey's done.
And what will come at last?
The road leads on.

 

~ Edwin Muir ~

(Collected Poems)

Or, as stated in a translation of Chinese caligraphy caringly given to me by someone many years ago: "Proceed, regardless of difficulty."

Remembering the Meaning of Labor Day

Adapted from my Labor Day Instagram post.

Today is Labor Day. I asked my high school students on Friday what it means to them. Most didn’t know the origins of why we celebrate this day. I reassured them that many American adults don’t know or don’t remember.

Today is more than end of summer BBQs. It’s a celebration of all the workers in our spheres. A recognition, by our federal government (at least some parts of it at some times) that all have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (though I would have urged Jefferson to change “happiness” to “contentment”). And that these rights extend to the workplace.

America is a work in progress. It is a very messy practice, elegiac at times, horrific at others. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is over a hundred years old and is about the awful exploitation of Eastern European immigrants in Chicago’s meat packing plants (or maybe plantations are a better name). His book contributed to dramatic change toward labor reforms and workers’ rights such that, by the mid 20th century, jobs in the meat packing industry were coveted work that provided a decent living and career.

Yet today, corporate focus over recent decades solely upon shareholders (not stakeholders) and quarterly returns have re-created many similar harsh and even cruel conditions for our 21st century immigrants. Look no farther than the conditions in the Mississippi poultry processing plants; this prior to the insane and absurd raids that rounded up 680 workers earlier this summer, separating many families. These people are willing to do work many citizens are unwilling to put up with, simply because of their immigrant status; somehow it’s still better than that from which they fled.

The irony is profound.

Today, when you get your Starbucks food and drink, when you shop at Costco, when you eat out at McDonald’s, when you use Uber, and/or when you have something delivered today by an Amazon driver, consider giving these human beings an acknowledgment of appreciation and support.

I myself am not that many generations removed from my own turn of the century immigrant families (referred to by the established classes as stupid Polacks and blockhead Swedes).

I cannot forget that almost all of us arrived at this land by emigration from places in dire straights. I will not forget.

Largo and the Bird: The Last Interview

The rush and crush of this Type A glorifying culture alternately can put you unto either a manic, frenzied, high energy state or can lock you down into a fog of numbness and blithering social media ramblings. Or worse. Yet, every now and then, you are jerked from this modern, material-world schizophrenia by something that wakes you up like a stiff cup of joe on an icy backcountry morning. 

I'd been meaning to watch this John Long (Largo) interview with Jim Bridwell (the Bird) for going on a year. Today, I finally saw the light and gave 15 minutes over to it. Fifteen minutes well spent. More actually, since I rewound at certain points to make sure I had clearly understood the line of the Bird's story.

From John Long's introduction to this short film on Adidas Outdoor: 

Jim had an appointment for dialysis treatment in 30 minutes so we had little time. With no planning or prep, we hastily set up cameras in Jim's back yard and I (John Long) started asking him questions. Jim immediately went to questionably the most controversial event in climbing history: Cesare Maestri's purported 1970 ascent of the Compressor Route on Cerro Torre, in Patagonia. The day following this interview, Jim, critically ill from Hepatitis C, dropped into a coma. And one of the seminal figures in modern adventure sports passed away soon thereafter.

Between these two characters, there is 110% guaranteed gripping and compelling storytelling. This one is priceless. Bridwell is in top "balls to the wall" form right up to the very end.

I'm grateful to have as friends several individuals who knew Jim well. And I'm also grateful to have heard him speak in person a couple of times over the years. He and Mark Twight are amongst the finest climbing-oriented speakers I've encountered. His Cerro Torre Compressor Route story is as spot on in this interview as it was when I first heard it over 20 years ago.

If you really want a deep, deep, comprehensively researched and clearly laid out dive into Maestri's and other Cerro Torre climbs, check out the overly humble but never overly hilarious Kelly's Cordes' masterpiece The Tower: A Chronicle Of Climbing And Controversy On Cerro Torre.

By the way: FYI folks—the original Type A's are the ones prone to heart attacks!

Going Down the Rabbit Hole of Student Curiosity and Teacher Excellence

Andrew Niemeijer, via his TEDx talk (Niemeijer, 2013), expresses two supremely important concepts: (1) the need for teachers to fuel student curiosity rather than to suppress it by requiring them to strictly color within the lines (so to speak) and (2) the need to “invest in teachers” to ensure that “excellent education will follow.”  I deeply appreciate that he chose to highlight these two areas (they are quite meaningful to me, personally), yet felt as though his talk could have been further developed. Perhaps he is referring to some prior context; if true, as viewers, it would have been useful to know just what that context is and how we could access it.

That said, I’ll take the opportunity to expand on these two concepts: primarily “following the rabbit  down the hole (a metaphor that Niemeijer uses well and that I find engaging and attractive) and also, briefly, teacher investment for the purposes of developing teachers of excellence.

Fueling curiosity in students is of paramount importance for me, as a teacher. There is a huge difference between “training” and “education.” 

Training is something tactical and practical; for example, a class on how to use Adobe Illustrator as a graphic designer within a marketing department. Training is the teaching of a particular skill that allows a task, simple or complex, to be accomplished. 

Education, on the other hand, is something that is strategic and theoretical. Education is not so much about how to execute a task, but more about how to find ways to think about solving problems. It is a graphic designer using the sum of her experiences, innate talents, and practical skills to create a means of visually expressing an idea and its potential benefits to others. The oft misunderstood liberal arts are a deep manifestation of education: the combination of critical thinking methods applied to solve not just a specific problem, but any variety of problems, even those of which the problem-solver may have little initial knowledge. 

As an aside, the value of the liberal arts reminds me of an experience in college. My girlfriend had contracted mononucleosis and her mother had flown from Washington, D.C. to Boston in order to accompany her back home. Mrs. Yurow was a very practically-minded mother who, I am certain (now that I am a parent), was simply attempting to look out for the best interests of her daughter’s future). After meeting her at the airport and exchanging a few introductory pleasantries, she asked me what I was studying. I replied that it was ancient Greek and Latin. In an incredulous and concerned tone, she queried, “What are you going to do with that?” Subsequently over time, reflecting upon my life’s profound experiences and relationships on occasion, I’ve thought to myself, “Well, Mrs. Yurow, can you now see what I’ve done with that?” She might still disagree (I should note that after this encounter she proved to be a kind and gracious person towards me).

Returning to students and curiosity, my idea is that while there are foundation components of education that all students require (literacy, mathematical concepts, sciences, social sciences, health, etc.), once students being to achieve levels of mastery over these basic elements, knowing simply how to execute them may not serve one entirely well in modern life. Knowing how to apply them and why to apply them to the myriad things life will throw at a person is more valuable by at least an order of magnitude. 

As teachers, we need to provide students with the core skills of learning and education. Once our students have tasted these, then we may need to follow them outside of the classroom and “down the rabbit hole” to help them build upon their innate senses of curiosity. There is also a greater, though more subtle lesson here: that following one’s curiosity develops a student’s understanding for the inherent and intrinsic value of doing something simply in and of itself. Confer also, Joseph Campbell’s concept of “following one’s bliss” (Campbell & Moyers, 1988).

At the end of his talk, Niemeijer exhorts us to understand that “teachers are pivotal to the future of excellent education” (Niemeijer, 2013) and to trust that investments in teachers will result in “excellent education.” I agree, but he does not expand on how to cultivate teaching excellence. For this, I want to point to research by Farinde-Wu, Glover, and Williams (2017) regarding “culturally responsive teaching among award-winning teachers. . . [who have been] identified as most successful by their peers and administrators” (p. 280). Their objective was to study the critical factors these award-winning teachers “considered key to their success with students in urban schools. In their classrooms, they implement RACCE. They respect, act immediately, communicate, celebrate, and encourage students” (p. 287).

These teachers all shared common approaches and concepts about how they connected with their students: scheduling “get to know you lunches” with individual students; establishing clear roles and accountability in their classroom (not only for students, but also the teacher); and developing teacher-constructed lessons and materials with specific student interests and engagement in mind that promote student-driven and student-led activities (Farinde-Wu et al, 2017). 

Farinde-Wu et al. (2017) use a phrase in the title of their research that steps beyond the purely academic and delves into into areas not typically depicted in drier scholarly writing: It’s Not Hard Work; It’s Heart Work. They provide, in great detail and with an engaging narrative structure, just what it is that makes award-winning teachers “award-winning.” As they note in their introduction, this is an area lacking in research. This study is welcomed and certainly more  research is necessary. If I may use an observation regarding my own career in the business sector: I spent much of the early part of my work years learning from my managers. What I learned was mostly how not to manage effectively. It was not until later that I encountered managers who demonstrated positive ways of being a leader (all the more appreciated because of my ability to compare to less effective predecessors). So it is with teaching. It is important to understand what does not work. But it is even more instructive to examine what does work well for educators and what are the characteristics of specific superb educators.

References

Campbell, J. & Moyers, B. D. (1988). The power of myth. New York: Doubleday.

Farinde-Wu, A., Glover, C. P., & Williams, N. N. (2017). It's not hard work; it's heart work: Strategies of effective, award-winning culturally responsive teachers. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 49(2), 279. doi:10.1007/s11256-017-0401-5

Niemeijer, A. (2013, October 13). Striving for excellence in education: Andrew Niemeijer at TEDxAmsterdamED 2013. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNeY8vkhdgY

Note: Originally written (June 21, 2019) as an academic reflection for a graduate class at Pacific Oaks College (Pasadena, California).

Daniel, My Brother

I saw these words today (image at left) and there was instant resonance. In addition to all the other significant impedimenta that I’ve been carrying (for some time now), my brother, Daniel Larson, passed away four weeks ago tomorrow (as some of you already know). He had been living—and i mean living in the sense of being more present—with a non-carcinogenic brain tumor for well over a decade.

I do not seek pity here, I do not feel sorry for myself; I have tried those techniques in countless permutations a long time ago. They don’t work effectively in any long-term way. I carry on, not in denial, but highly mindful that we all have expiration dates—it’s just that the exact date is mostly hidden from our awareness. Maybe as it ought to be. As the Buddhists teach, there are only two things of which we can be certain in this life: 1) that we will die, and 2) that we don’t know when. And, as I like to add by borrowing from Maimonides, the rest is commentary.

Here is how I choose to live: I carry on, delighting in the myriad serendipitous little instances of beauty that lie all around us every single day. A sip of coffee. Cold water on the face. Smiles exchanged, silently, with a stranger. The flight of a bee around a garden. I also choose to live knowing that the meaning or non-meaning of the universe is vastly beyond our mere human intellectual understanding. And, while this profundity of unknown meaning may not make sense in the moment, in the long term and on the large scale, it connects organically to something that makes sense somewhere, somehow. It may not be for us to comprehend, ever. Or it may be we do not need to comprehend the now until after we have journeyed through it. 

At this point, I carry my burdens because they are mine, mine alone, to carry. I own them, whether they are of my making or have been presented to me. I chose to carry them. And I know that to persevere by traveling on will intuitively bear sweet fruit in time, at least from my own travels. 

I sense this ineffable meaning. Perhaps on an atomic level, or even sub-atomic. Joni Mitchell nailed it when she said, “We are stardust. We are golden.”

Returning to Daniel, my brother. I always had premonitions that Elton John’s Daniel would in some way apply to him. In ways of which I held fear and anxiety. But even more so, I recall great and beautiful friendships, the ones in which each friend supports the other, as needed, when needed, in the most human of ways: Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck. Frodo and Sam Gamgee. I hearken back to the old Hollies song: He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.  Daniel is heavy, yet precisely because he is my brother, I must carry the weight. I want to carry the weight.

I have support, those who are able to carry my weight when I falter. My children (in ways that they don’t even realize), my mom, my other brother, my aunt, my work family, my school family, friends from climbing, friends from yoga, and friends from my travels. Thank you all. Like Lou Gehrig, “today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.”

More likely to come at some point. Processing in progress. Peace and love to all. Gratitude to @angelajeanwellness (Instagram) for sharing the image and sentiment.

You can find Daniel's beautiful and heartfelt obituary, written by his wife and companion, Darla here: Daniel's obituary.

Music and Nerds: Ever the Twain Shall Meet

What is the connection between music, technology, and by extension, mathematics? Are there any? If so, how might they be connected? As I’ll describe, this topic holds a deep fascination for me; it has done so for quite a long time, dating back to my observations and experiences from a rather different segment of my life’s journey. It’s from an era that represents a formative, yet divergent path from the one on which I now find myself traveling. Yet, I couldn’t have arrived at this place of becoming a teacher on which I now find myself (joyfully so) without having gone off on a multi-decades long side trip.

First, I’ll note that the ancient Greeks considered music and mathematics to go hand in hand. Greeks such as Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle initiated the development of the quadrivium (four ways) that was the foundation for the study of mathematics up through the middle ages. This structure divided mathematics into four sections: Number Theory, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. Music did not become an area of independent study until the Renaissance and even then its affinity with mathematics has persisted (Papadopoulos, 2002). The connection continues to this day. Musical scales, measures, harmonics, tones, intervals, etc., all can be correlated to the much of the language, rules, and principles used in mathematics.

I want to note that the roots of these encounters with music and math go back to my childhood, though at the time, I don’t explicitly recall seeing a connection between the two. Rather, these were seeds planted during these times that enabled associations that would later arise. Bear with me as I first lay the groundwork of math and music on my own personal journey. It ultimately relates to the topic at hand.

Perhaps it was music that came first. I don’t recall quite what compelled me to request them, but for my sixth birthday I received a record player and three albums which I’d specifically requested (from my grandmother, who had no affinity with any of this). The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, The Supreme’s Greatest Hits (a double album), and Petula Clark’s Downtown. For a six year old boy, these called to me musically (and Beethoven, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky did as well). About a year later, I began guitar lessons because I wanted to play the Beatles’ music.

Something got lost in the translation, because my mom signed me up for classical guitar, which obviously differs significantly from the rock and roll guitar playing. It was a serendipitous misstep, though, and I deeply appreciate the years spent practicing classical technique.

Then there was math. Math came rather easily to me. Perhaps it had something to do with my dad, who was an engineer and computer scientist. By the time I was in middle/high school, I happened to be enrolled at a school where, for certain groups, the high-school math path could be accelerated by a year. So, I took pre-Algebra in 7th grade. This was one year ahead of the typical middle to high school mathematics cycle then and was somewhat unusual (I’m not sure if this is common today). So, when we later moved and I switched to a new high school, I found myself a year ahead in math with respect to my 10th grade peers (having taken geometry and algebra as well by that time). So I was enrolled, instead, in an 11th grade Algebra II and Trigonometry class.

While I did quite well with math up through this point, my interests, academically, started to lead me in other directions. I became deeply drawn to the Humanities, particularly Homer’s Odyssey. And my abilities as a writer were just beginning to bud and bloom. I chose other lines of focus different from math as I finished high school and entered college.

College was a very conscious exploration for me. I wasn’t focused on a specific skill set or career, but set out to very deliberately pursue a full liberal arts education. I explored all the various schools of the university, tying my work together with the common thread that was Ancient Greek and Latin languages along with the history, archaeology, literature et al. that accompanies them.

Post college, it was this rounded, encompassing, humanistic line of study that prepared me for a return of a world that centered around mathematical concepts, implemented in practical ways: The world of the technology business.

These were the early days of the Macintosh computer and I was inspired by the vision of a device that was created as a tool for humans to pursue their work and passions, rather than a sandbox toy for technologists. This lead me to work for several startup companies. One of the early ones was a small company known as MacroMind (later to become MacroMedia). What is relevant to this discussion are the people who founded MacroMind and what they brought with them.

These founders where not traditional engineers. Rather, they were highly educated and trained musicians and artists. They witnessed the birth of personal computers and found a common desire and vision: they wanted to create music and art with these powerful new devices. Yet, when they tried, they were massively disappointed. Why? Because there were no adequate tools for creation on these machines. Rather than give up, they chose to create the tools themselves, realizing that no one else was going to do it anytime soon. It was at this point that I began to clearly see the connections between music and math (as I believe I think my colleagues had). They became software developers not out of a love of technology for its own sake, but because they had a vision to create music and art in new ways. The fact that both music and math are based on specific, measured languages built around relationships, proportionality, and scalability was not lost on me, nor on them. It followed naturally that these accomplished musicians would also make accomplished software developers, using programming languages to compose works just as they’d used musical theory and notation to play and create music. MIDI had meaning for me, not as a fashion skirt length, but as a tool for digital music creation (MIDI refers to Musical Instrument Digital Interface).

After MacroMind, I moved to work at NeXT Computer. The NeXT cube was an evolutionary leap (by a level of magnitude) after the Macintosh. Here I met and began working with a diverse and elite group of software and hardware engineers. Mathematics was the very foundation of everything that we created here; it was evident around every corner and in every office of the various engineering groups. In fact, one of the first roles I had was supporting software for our customers. One instance of which was the very first version of Steven Wolfram’s Mathematica which ran on NeXT computers.

The NeXT computer also included a dedicated digital signal processor (DSP) that was of particular interest to those interested in music as it could be used to specifically process complex musical signals with the speed necessary to perform complex, layered pieces. Indeed, at its introduction at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco in 1988, a NeXT computer played a duet with a violinist at the event’s closing (Schlender, 1988).

The number of musicians (professional or recreational) in the technology business has always been notable to me. Wherever I worked, there would typically be at least a few engineers who would play an instrument more than occasionally. Often their instruments would reside in their offices. I suspect that the act of playing music is, beyond its intrinsic value, a creative/thinking method that could help these individuals with their work, which naturally, as I’ve noted, is built on the foundation of mathematics. Additionally, at NeXT, we had at least one staff member from The Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University who worked on applications for the DSP. Today, he is has returned to CCRMA full time and continues teaching and researching digital signal processing there.

In research this reflection, I came across a poem (below) aptly titled Music and Mathematics (Boucher, 2015). While Papadopoulos (2002) uses Pythagoras and Rameau to bridge the ancient and modern worlds and their connecting of music and math, Boucher’s poem does this in more lyrical language using Euclid and Beethoven. I find it an appropriate way to finish, as Geometry is amongst my favorite areas of mathematics; and, for me, Beethoven stands alone as a classical musician. 

Music and Mathematics

Robert J. Boucher

Music and Math, their mystery unfurled
Exist outside our material world,
Without the sun, without the stars,
Without the earth, without mankind.

The “Ode to Joy” has forever been.
Beethoven, only the earth author
just one of many galactic men
recording what was revealed to him.

Euclid did not invent Geometry.
Euclid’s Geometry has forever been.
Euclid, one of many galactic
men recording what was revealed to him.
Did Euclid ever see the face of GOD?
Did Euclid ever hear HER voice?

Was it revealed in a geometric dream
as it was to the prophets of old?
We humans claim credit for so many things
that we will never, ever understand.

Note: This piece was originally published as part of my coursework at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California. It's what we call an Academic Reflective Journal and originally was entitled Connections Between Music and Technology (vis a vis its mathematical foundations) (2019). How academic of me. 

References

Boucher, R. (2015). Music and mathematics. Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, 5(2), 174. doi:10.5642/jhummath.201502.21

Papadopoulos, A. (2002). Mathematics and music theory: From Pythagoras to Rameau. The Mathematical Intelligencer, 24(1), 65-73. doi:10.1007/BF03025314

Schlender, B. R. (1988, October 13). Next project: Apple era behind him, Steve Jobs tries again, using a new system. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://tech-insider.org/unix/ research/1988/1013.html 

The Beginning: Irving and the Tomatoes

I wrote this remembrance on the occasion of my dear friend and teacher, Irving Schwartz's retirement (1993) and has become part of a trilogy of pieces about him. I'll be posting the other two in the future.

This piece marks the renaissance of my own writing. It came at a time when I was emerging from a particular wilderness and discovering new components of my own self. Written more than 25 years ago, it marks a blind leap into a realization that a huge part of who I am is encapsulated in one word: Writer. My genuine voice began to appear in all its depth and nuance as I wrote about Irving.

Rereading it now, I'm struck by how relevant and fresh it remains.

Since then, I have travelled along many varied paths and roads; at times even crossing oceans (real and metaphorical). It's as much about Irving as it is about me, both then and now. 

How Irving Taught Me to Row

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Hamlet, iii 79–80

I wanted to serve in the Coast Guard. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I was thirteen years old and my parents had recently divorced. And, given the level of sophistication a small town in western Massachusetts could provide, that was about the limit of my aspirations. That was about to change, however. Irving Schwartz was about to enter my life.

In those days, I spent a lot of time running circles in my backyard (five times around to the half mile). I knew that it helped me to relax and improve my self-esteem. In retrospect, it also helped me escape the intense pain and confusion I was feeling during that difficult time. But that running was to become much more than a physical release to me. It became a sustaining and prevailing metaphor for my life—it became a symbol of my own personal Odyssey. And, running was the first thing Irving and I had in common—both in a physical and in a philosophical sense. Yet, I'm not certain I would have been able to realize and develop the philosophical without the impetus and enlightenment Irving stimulated within me.

The first time I really remember meeting Irving was in Mom's apartment in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. My brothers and I still lived with Dad in our old house conveniently located across the backyard. It was summer and one of those typically humid and warm New England summer days that can be truly glorious if you know how to go about approaching them. It was time for dinner and if you know my Mom and Irving, it's no simple or brief affair. Dinner was not simply eating (though that certainly was the culminating achievement of the event), it was the preparation, the drinking, the noshing, the engaging conversation, and the humor. All of this, of course, peppered with intermittent kvetching.

I remember Irving sitting at the table while my Mom was bustling about the kitchen in her usual manner. No doubt, he was most likely chopping something, perhaps tomatoes for a great tomato salad he makes—perfectly refreshing on a hot day. And I remember being intrigued and stricken by this man: a man with more hair (with the exception of the top of his head) than any I had previously encountered. An impressive handlebar mustache. A short sleeve Brooks Brothers cotton dress shirt—almost his "uniform" in those days. Little did I know it was soon to become a part my own uniform. Yet, what struck me most was not of a physical nature at all. I would have the most engaging conversations with Irving. I remember him being fascinated by my running. He was a runner too and talked of a ten-mile race (an almost unheard of distance, at least, at that time, for me) he had run. He talked of the marathon with such awe and wonderment that he inspired me to later run the distance.

The conversation turned to school, my academic interests, and my plans. I told him of the Coast Guard. And as best as I can remember, his reaction was, more or less, "That's it? That's all?" But Irving wasn't being deprecating or disparaging. His response really was an opening in an alpine mist that revealed to me incredible and heretofore unknown mountains. His tone was encouraging and enlightening. And over time, he helped me find the obscured but myriad approaches to those mountains. He knew where many of those routes were and was able to guide me on some. But more importantly, what Irving really gave to me were the tools of route-finding. Because ultimately, I still have many paths to traverse on which Irving has never trodden. I need to find the way for myself. And Irving was a seminal impetus in teaching me the world of those valuable route-finding tools.

Over the years, my relationship with Irving continued to grow. Here was an adult—intelligent, educated, and sophisticated, yet humble—who was truly my friend. He treated and challenged me as an equal, not as a mere child, the son of the woman who was to become his long time companion. It would have been easy for Irving to play the surrogate father role. But, at least with me, he was much beyond that—and for that I am eternally grateful to him. To this day, when I describe my relationship with Irving to others, he is first and foremost my friend.

For a long time, I think I really wanted to be just like Irving. I wanted to be a professional academic and in some ways continued to pursue this path until not all that long ago. The funny thing, I've come to realize, is that a professional academic isn't what Irving really ever was. And it took an arduous journey for me to realize that professional academia is not necessarily always dedicated to the pursuit of the meaning and significance of humanitas (something I discovered during a frustrating year of post-graduate study). I knew that Irving too had been burned by academia. But I somehow thought that this must have been some kind of a freak accident; I would prove differently. Such hubris.

In the end, I've come to realize that being a lover of humanitas doesn't mean one necessarily has to accomplish this in an academic setting (though it is distinctly possible—it just wasn't in my own situation). It doesn't matter what you do or where you do it, really. What matters is the means by which you approach the various aspects of life—and by which you strive to enhance and broaden your understanding of the world. It means being a generalist, something which Irving has often called himself and something which I have taken to calling myself as well. It comes back to something I noted previously: it's not so much about knowing which route is the absolute correct one. This is because there is really no one route suitable to all. What's important, is knowing what are the proper tools and methods for determining the correct route. Once those become comprehensible to you, the possibility of myriad "correct" routes become apparent.

So, after all, I have become like Irving, even though we're quite different. This reminds me of a somewhat odd passage from the Odyssey. During his journey, Odysseus received a prophesy that once he did return home, he should take an oar and travel inland. When he encountered a people who did not know what he was carrying, he should plant the oar in the ground and teach those people about the meaning of the oar. Before a person can even begin to help others grow, she's got to get home herself—she must achieve a certain level of growth and maturity. It is then that she can teach others—but only about the process and means of growing (signified by the labor of the oar, rowing)—she can’t tell them specifically how to get home. That is something they need to discover for themselves. Irving has helped teach me the meaning of the oar and I hope I too am able to do the same for others.

I believe that a teacher is successful even if, after a lifetime of failure, he or she makes a difference for and gets through to only a single student. Irving has made a difference in my life and I'll never forget that. Part of me has internalized aspects of Irving and those aspects can never diminish, for, for better or worse, they'll be passed on to those who I come to influence. It's a uniquely human form of immortality—we are what our parents were; and our children will be what we are. While our physical being is mortal, under the best circumstances our collective personality extends through the generations. What is of importance is what we most unequivocally have in the here and now: life.

Irving is no longer a predominant part of my life. That's not a bad thing, though it would be nice if we lived closer. I've moved on to scope out my own routes and begin to climb my own peaks. But I'll never forget the foundations that sustain me in the place I now stand, and for that I'm profoundly thankful.

This is my view of Irving. It's not anyone else's. I know some see him in a very different light—and may not even be able to view him from my perspective. But this is my experience of Irving and I do know others share in it as well.

Soon, I'll travel to Boston with my daughter Hannah to visit my Mom and Irving (he's "Grandpa Irving" to Hannah). And I know we'll all convene together in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Perhaps we'll even have tomato salad.

Eric Larson
Palo Alto, California
September 9, 1993

[I subsequently changed my last name to O'Rafferty as part of another journey; that's a tale for another day.]

Summer is for Slowing Down

"I associate summer with shade, resting and reading, napping." I am in complete alignment with this childhood association of Linda Wertheimer's! #typebunderachieversunite

Fields need winter to lay fallow, rest, and regenerate. Summer can be this for humans too.

Colin with the right idea.

 

We Should Turn Down The Volume Of This Hot Summer