Author: Meg Noble Peterson Page 22 of 30

After spending three weeks at the cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee in July and early August, I headed for my yearly sojourn in the Northwest: Seattle, Whidbey Island, and the northern Cascade mountains of Washington. An old friend from the Plainfield Symphony, Nancy Quickstad, greeted me and, after spending the night with her family, delivered me to Jon Pollack, my Himalayan climbing buddy. From there I visited with Beth Whitman, my peripatetic friend, who is right now in India, heading for Bhutan (http://wanderlustandlipstick.com/). On our walk we stumbled onto Seattle Tilth, a non-profit organic gardening and urban ecology center, which has classes, demonstration gardens, children’s program, and community events. (www.Seattletilth.org/) And it’s right in the middle of residential Seattle! I visited with Yana Viniko and Lee Compton, with whom I traveled in Myanmar two years ago, and talked with old friends, Joan Weisenbloom, and Betty Tisdale, who at 87 is still raising money for schools and orphanages in Asia and South America. Betty had just returned from Kabul, Afghanistan, where she helped refurbish the School for Creative Abilities, for which she raised $20,000. She worked alongside Marni Gustafson, a women recently interviewed about this and other projects by Christiane Amanpour, the international journalist. Betty is high on my list of people in this world who make a difference. I recommend that you look at her website, and read about the organization, H.A.L.O (Helping and loving Orphans) which Betty started in 2000 to help children in Vietnam, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Mexico. (www.bettytisdale.com) In the spring Betty is returning to Vietnam and Afghanistan to continue her work.

Once I arrived on Whidbey Island and settled into my daughter, Cary Peterson’s rustic cabin, adjacent to the Talking Circle community, I began participating in the maintenance of the two gardens she has spearheaded, Good Cheer Garden (started in January on a huge parcel of unused land, which required a lot of work to make it arable)  http://www.goodcheer.org/ and The Whidbey Institute Garden. I worked alongside several of the 250 volunteers that make these gardens so important to the welfare of South Whidbey. The aim is a hunger-free environment, and the Good Cheer Thrift Store in Langley, stocked from donations, supplies much of the funding. Many companies and a few retired farmers also donate a huge variety of products to the food bank. Good Cheer Food Bank is a grocery-style food bank based on points and open six days a week. It’s a cutting edge model for food banks throughout the country.

Good Cheer Truck

Children getting instructions

I experienced intense physical labor unlike anything I’ve done in recent years. Made me really appreciate the United Farm Workers! I also helped in sorting thousands of seed packets donated by the Ed Hume Seed Company for these gardens, which not only have lifted the spirits of so many people on the island, but also provide nutritious fresh produce for those below the poverty level or unemployed during these difficult times. On one morning Cary and I packaged and labeled over 80 bags of lettuce that were gone by the next day. Those who benefit from these gardens also volunteer and donate money once they are back at work and have no need for the service. Others, who are currently unemployed, use their free time to help in the garden while they are receiving a helping hand in return. It’s a win-win for everybody, and the spirit of cooperation, from the director of the Good Cheer Food Bank, Kathy McLaughlin, to the many volunteers of all ages throughout South Whidbey Island is palpable.

Children cleaning carrots

Let me touch, briefly, on the new Youth Work Crew Program, which deals with youth at risk. It is part of the Island County Department of Juvenile and Family Court Services whose purpose is to reduce juvenile delinquency. Here is an example of giving young people a chance to work, supervised, in a garden setting, as an alternative to serving in detention, and at the same time make a contribution to the life of their community. It gives them positive coping skills and a feeling of pride and accomplishment that does not come from meaningless clean-up jobs assigned to transgressors in the past. This is a new program, which Cary tells me is making a real difference in the lives of these young people.

Children eating carrots

Cary Peterson in one section of Whidbey Institute Garden

A real plus to my visit to Whidbey Island was connecting with Robert and Lynn Rubright, old friends from St. Louis who were making a tour of the Northwest. We took in some of the natural wonders of the island, including several state parks, and treated ourselves to walks on the beach and the bluffs overlooking Puget Sound.

Other old friends I visited were Dale Reiger, who is still setting up hospitals in Honduras http://saludjuntos.org/ and Fred and Sharon Lundahl, who are presently traveling in Central Asia to replenish their stock of handsome carpets and textiles for their store in Langley, Music for the Eyes. It was in this beautiful store that I gave my slide show and book reading two years ago.

My next blog will have photos from the four days of climbing I enjoyed with Jon Pollack in the Mt. Baker National Forest. Please bear with me. As you can tell, I’m having trouble mounting these pictures. They don’t go where I tell them to, and sometimes they disappear completely (the mysteries of modern technology) and the text has nothing to do with the photos. Just pretend this is a puzzle. Try to fit the text together!

The children pictured on this blog are from local elementary schools, not the Youth at Risk program.

Good Cheer volunteer

Kathy McLaughlin, Executive Director

Bagging fresh produce

 

Fresh-baked bread for lunch!

The variety of vegetables is limitless

Volunteers are guaranteed a great lunch!

All ages are welcome at the Good Cheer Garden

Cary's cargo bike. Great mileage!

Greenhouse built especially for tomatoes, which are difficult to grow in the Northwest

Call me chicken or call me wise, but you can also call me brave for fighting the winds and rain and fog of the Jersey Turnpike and 95 South and whatever other route I found myself on, as I fought the defroster and the endless trips through the same tunnel, trying to see road signs and exits. If it hadn’t been for the CD of presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s captivating book, Team of Rivals, I would never have retained my sanity. Or maybe that’s why I kept losing my way. Amtrak, here I come!

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He is the first president in two decades to refuse to meet the Tibetan leader-in-exile. He has met countless other leaders of countries whose human rights violations are legendary (how about China for starters?). There’s enough unpleasant news out there to go around—from Afghanistan to Myanmar, from Iran to North Korea. And here was a chance to acknowledge a man who stands for non-violence, peace, and reconciliation in the world. How wrongheaded and sad it is that he has been denied meeting with our president for fear of antagonizing China. What happened to all the campaign rhetoric about human freedom? Who’s running the show? Political expediency? Money? So much for values.

I just saw Michael Moore’s latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story. What a blast! No matter where you stand in the economic spectrum, you’ll find some compelling stories along with humor and wit that will make you think. Don’t miss it. One of my favorite scenes is Michael talking to a Wall Street banker, who is explaining derivatives. Watch his face. It’s the face of most Americans as they try to understand what happened to our economy and work their way through the labyrinth of complicated financial-speak that brought this country to its knees.

For five weeks, a festival of Irish theater has been taking place all over town, from the Irish Repertory to the 59E59 Theater to the Players Loft Theater where last night I enjoyed Sean Gormly in Conor McPherson’s The Good Thief. It doesn’t get any better than Conor McPherson, who wowed New Yorkers with The Seafarer and The Weir, two of his most compelling plays. But this poetic and riveting one-man show about comic hard luck and lurid violence once more paints the Irish as a bit stupid (or should I say clueless), very drunk, and prone to senseless violence. This does not go over well in Ireland, as we all know, but it sure makes for good theater. And this tale had us on the edge of our seats as we listened to the story of a sociopath who seemed to have no idea of right or wrong or how to reclaim a life gone totally off the tracks. Made me feel boringly normal. 

If you want a great pre-theater bowl of borscht, go up a flight of stairs to the Olive Tree Cafe at 117 McDougal Street around the corner from the Minetta Lane Theater and next door to the Player’s Loft. You can get it hot or cold, accompanied by a tub of sour cream and the best dark bread in town.

Several people have urged me to continue with my travel suggestions. As you know, I had to cancel my hoped-for climb in Nepal this Fall, so this will at least give the flavor of travel to my blog. I give such advice because I have made all the classic mistakes and even if you follow my lead, you will make other ones. Do share them with us. Some day we will all be perfect! 

As I said in the last entry, take only half of what you first thought was absolutely necessary, and do not carry a load that makes you feel and look like a bedraggled donkey ready for retirement. Rule #2: Label all your bags with YOUR name, home address, and destination. You laugh. What dope wouldn’t do THAT? Well, my daughter (sorry Martha) didn’t on our trip to Tanzania last year, and she almost lost a very important duffel with climbing paraphernalia. It had to be delivered to the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro! It was labeled all right, but with her son’s name. The airline totally overlooked it in its search. Also, keep a small book (I’m big on small looseleaf notebooks) with necessary addresses and statistics such as the size of bags and what they look like. When you lose something and are jet-lagging at your destination, it’s hard to remember what your name is, to say nothing of the color or configuration of your bags. Watch for the next 8 rules. And send me yours. There’s no limit.

My desire to see the world and live in other cultures was considered a little strange sixty years ago. Not so any more. It’s all the rage and I’m tickled pink. My unofficial granddaughter, an artist extraordinaire, Jenny Vitello, is landing, as I write, in Nairobi, Kenya, and will be spending the next ten months as a volunteer with Global Vision International. She will work in villages as well as do oceanic research. Her headquarters will be in Shimoni, Kenya…a stone’s throw from the Tanzanian border. In fact, on a clear day she can see Mt. Kilimanjaro! In the next months I may send on some tidbits about Jen’s work, but in the meantime, if you’re interested in the scope of the project check out their blog: 

 http://gvikenya.blogspot.com/  

A couple of months ago Jen came to me for advice on what to take and what not to take. Having made two world backpacking trips and dozens of other assorted journeys and treks, I have the reputation for being brutal when it comes to packing. I wear my heavy climbing boots, one pair of thin, easy-dry hiking pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a polar fleece. You certainly won’t need the latter in equatorial Africa when you arrive (except at night), but have you ever tried to sleep on an airplane these days when there’s a shortage of blankets? This leaves a minimum of undergarments (two bras, two pair of panties, four pairs of socks, including two smart wool, a pair of shorts, a couple of T-shirts, one acting as a nightie, and a minimum—absolute minimum!—of toiletries. You can buy extras of any of these things, which you probably will enjoy as mementos on your return). 

Of course there will be a huge list from the leaders of any travel enterprise but the one thing I always stress is: DO NOT LOAD YOURSELF DOWN!! No matter how beautiful you may be, very seldom do you find a handsome man willing to cart your stuff for you. Chivalry is not dead, but it is on the wane big time. I stopped carrying my house on my back about twelve years ago when I happened to catch a glimpse of myself in a plate glass window in a tiny town in Tasmania. I was almost bent double from an overloaded pack and I had a small duffel in one hand and a huge camera case in the other. You’re out of your mind, I said to myself, and that’s when I came up with travel rule #1: Put everything you think you must take on your bed, look at it for a long time, and take half. 

Jenny will do just fine. She’s smart and she’s incredibly organized. But she will have to learn the hard way that carrying eight tubes of sunscreen and a barrel of Deet, even if you are blonde and fair-skinned, is a little over the top. I told her that she should have bought the edible kind, so she could feed it to the fish rather than carry it back home. But, hey, she’s prone to mosquito bites, hates the thought of malaria, and sunburns like a slice of bacon. So who am I to judge? Good luck, fair damsel.

This was the first opera I saw on my honeymoon in Paris in 1950 and it just gets better and better. I also prefer the original German to French. This new production featured the amazing puppets, costuming, and special effects of Lion King’s Julie Taymor. The humor, the acting, and the singing were perfect, especially Christopher Maltman as Papageno and Erika Miklosa as the Queen of the Night. Big thanks to my niece, Margaret Magill, a violinist with the Met orchestra, who was able to get me tickets for the opening night.

This was also the first time I had seen the new fountain at Lincoln Center. The night couldn’t have been more beautiful—a warm, balmy, sit-outside-in-a-café sort of evening on the cusp of autumn. The whole area is one that those of you who visit the Big Apple must not miss.

Waves crashing into the breakwater

…And now I can put the summer to rest. There is a magnetic pull exerted by this vast, untamed lake and the “Noble Cottage,” our family haven for over fifty years, so when I find a few days of Indian Summer I cannot resist one last visit. Well, the days were warm and sunny last week, but the nights were anything but! Try thirty degrees. I made a quick trip to the Franconia Range for a visit with Anne and Frank Magill, my wonderful sister and brother-in-law, who were celebrating 57 years of marriage, before returning to a three-day-blow on the lake, with ocean-sized waves and water to rival the North Atlantic in winter. No matter. Swimming is what I wanted to do, and I got my fill.

Just before sunset…

I always love to watch the movement of the sunset from its place directly in front of the cottage in June to its new position way over to the left of our dock in September. And there is a light just before it sets that speaks to me in tones of white and yellow, the mysterious light of impending winter.

Now the day is over…

 After three glorious weeks in New Hampshire and three more in the Northwest (Seattle, Whidbey Island, and the Northern Cascade Mountains), I returned to the reality that I had more to deal with than the hundreds of backed-up emails (Will I never learn to post that vacation message?). A new year beginning (I always think of September as the new year, since that is when the kids returned to school after the summer), several book ideas fighting for dominance, and the sober facts of national and international conflict that have changed very little during my NYTimes hiatus. I loved being away, but now it’s back to work . I began with a speech at the South Orange Rotary Club last Thursday, to a group of responsive business leaders, who responded with enthusiasm to my subject, “Traveling off the Beaten Path,” and showed great interest in the orphanage project in Zimbabwe I’ve written about in this blog. I also told them about the Tibetan Childrens’ Villages (TCV) I had visited and help support in India. Thank you, President Stacey Borden for the wonderful reception. Please write me if you want any more information about these two important projects. My grandson, Adam, has been working hard on a prospectus to help raise money for the orphanage, spurred on by the encouragement of Greg Mortenson, whom he met last spring.

I’ve been told to write my blog more often and keep it short! I get the message. I’ll be posting photos of my summer trips next week. In the meantime, let’s hear about your summer adventures!

 Would you believe that a month ago we were drowning and now, in the middle of summer, we’re having the spring we never had? I’m beginning to think that we’re competing with Seattle to see who can have the strangest weather year. But who’s complaining? I’m glad for the cool breezes and mild sunshine. Overjoyed, in fact. 

Speaking of Seattle, my daughter, Cary, is having a banner year creating, with the help of 160 volunteers, a gigantic garden on Whidbey Island, the Good Cheer Garden, which supplies the Food Bank with much-needed produce. Gardening is, once again, seen as an important part of our country’s economic life as well as a great social and community enterprise. And then, there are those delicious, healthy fresh vegetables! I recommend that you take a look at her website, www.goodcheergarden.wordpress.com  This has become a major project in the life of South Whidbey, WA.

 In June Mike Fenton, Autoharp player extraordinaire, and his lovely wife, Rachel, visited me from England on their way to the Mt. Laurel Autoharp Gathering. They surprised me by taking me to the fabulous Billy Elliot on Broadway. It is every bit as great a musical as the Tony Awards proclaimed, and a must-see for those visiting New York City. 

Another great Autoharp player visited me this week. He’s the other Will Smith and hails from Nashville, TN. Here he is playing his new Tom Fladmark Autoharp, which he designed and fitted with the most beautiful and unusual chord combinations I have ever heard. I was enthralled by his playing and can’t wait to hear his latest album. My traveling and hiking have been greatly curtailed because of a stupid accident (are there any smart ones?) in which I tore the meniscus in my left knee. It wasn’t serious, but it needed repair. So at the end of June, during my recuperation from laparoscopic surgery, I spent a glorious week with my two sisters at our cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. It was perfect…if you like rain. And the water temperature would have thrilled a polar bear. Not being polar bears, we waited for our meager three days of sunshine to brave the icy waves. Here are some pictures of the cottage at sunset.

Upon returning to Maplewood in July I was treated to a once-a-year rock concert extravaganza, Maplewoodstock, conceived and organized by my son-in-law, Gary Shippy. This two-day celebration of local and national bands is in its sixth year and draws an enormous crowd from Maplewood and South Orange. Families gather on the grassy hill near the railroad station to mingle, visit folk art booths, and delight in being with old friends. Children dance to the music and play on the lawn, while adults engage in an all-day picnic, which continues late into the night. This year we were treated to such headliners as Marshall Crenshaw and Jonathan Edwards. And the weather cooperated by holding the rain until the moment the last note was played. This is just another good reason to live in this friendly, alive community.

 Tomorrow I leave for another three weeks at the Winnipesaukee cottage, where my family and friends will gather for swimming, kayaking, and hiking in the White Mountains. After that I head for the great northwest, Whidbey Island, and the northern Cascades. I shall write about these adventures next month. In the meantime, do look at my latest photos mentioned at the bottom of the home page in red ink. Like most people who use digital cameras, I’m way behind in my postings. There are just too many pictures. And who’s to blame for that? I’m afraid we’re all the same!

 While in Seattle, I’m looking forward to seeing my friend, Beth Whitman, writer, most recently, of For Women Traveling in India, and a peripatetic traveler (www.WanderlustAndLipstick.com). I had also hoped to see Rita Golden Gelman (www.ritagoldengelman.com), whom I have admired since I read her book, Tales of a Female Nomad. She is a true nomad. I now discover that she won’t be there at the end of August, but urge you to look at her website and read about her new program, Let’s Get Global, for the “gap year and more” movement she has started. This is a program after my own heart, introducing young people to the joys of travel and of really getting to know other cultures.

 I am always entranced by the awakening of the earth, which for so many months has lain dormant. Birds return to my holly trees, ferns turn bright green and spread, gracefully, along my back fence, and the carefully tended gardens in the neighborhood afford me color and delicate aromas as I take my morning walk up and down the hills of Maplewood. The azaleas have just passed and the rhododendron, with its plump round flowers, has arrived in various shades of purple. I am carried back to Lukla, when I returned from Everest Base Camp, and wandered through a forest of deep red rhododendron, so miraculous in their beauty after leaving the bitter cold of high altitude. I never take this abundant new life for granted. 

Many of you travelers struggle with the same frustration I have in selecting and cataloguing the huge number of photographs produced by digital cameras. True, it’s our fault. We could just press delete. But we don’t. And then there is the desire to crop, tune, and retouch each scene to perfection (in my case the vast mountain panoramas and ancient living quarters) before moving them to albums that can be enjoyed by friends and family. And so, the saga of my efforts to upload photographs continues with incremental learning spurts that keep me ever-optimistic and eager to share. I hope many of you have seen the five albums I placed on facebook.  For the refreshed links, look at my April 4^th blog. I am now, however, putting new albums on my home page. I have put the photos of Myanmar and Dharamsala on hold and am starting in on Ladakh and Tanzania, my most recent trips. Consistency has never held me back, but I do ask your patience. I also would like your feedback on my newest photo galleries. The link is written in large red print at the bottom of my home page. Be sure to click on each photo to enlarge, and read the captions as the adventure unfolds. More are coming! 

I go to New York City a great deal, sometimes with friends, and sometimes alone. The city never ceases to amaze and tickle me. When alone I could be walking up a street in Asia, listening to languages as diverse as the faces that accompany them, and enjoying the varied garb of a cultural potpourri. If I were in another country, I’d be putting down the names of the quaint stores along the way and recording the shouts of the vendors as they ply their trade…and the conversations overheard on cell phones or in the small groups that wander with me up Eighth Avenue from Penn Station to Midtown. I see the usual brand of tourist, gawking at high buildings that are commonplace to me, and, most recently, enjoying the people lounging in chairs on the new pedestrian mall in Times Square. It’s a scream! Not only can you sit on bleachers near the TKTS booth at 47^th and Broadway and eat your lunch or just people-watch, but you can also lie on your webbed chair and breathe in the exhaust fumes from the traffic on Broadway, while looking at a most unappealing bunch of stores on either side of the street. No trees—just pavement all around, and tourists taking your picture. Does that sound a bit bizarre to you? Only in America! 

I’ve played my fill of concerts for the year and attended some stirring performances at Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls. Alice Tully Hall has been refurbished and all of Lincoln Center is getting a needed facelift for its 50^th anniversary. Come see it, if only to enjoy spring at one of New York City’s most beautiful spots. 

I don’t want to disappoint my theater-addicted friends, so I shall end with a list of some of the wonderful plays I’ve attended this past month. My friend, Barry Hamilton, artistic director of Ruth Eckherdt Hall in St. Petersburg and his lovely wife, Ruth Klukoff, a violin teacher, attended my granddaughter Cally’s graduation party, following her graduation, Phi Beta Kappa, from Rutgers. Barry took me to God of Carnage on Broadway, the best comedy I’ve seen since August: Osage County. It was the beginning of my birthday week celebration. Phyllis Bitow, another theater buddy took me to Next to Normal, a very thoughtful, unusual musical, starring Alice Ripley. Other shows worthy of mention are: the Pulitzer prize winning Ruined by Lynn Nottage, a heart-breaking story of the treatment of women in the Congo; Eugene O’Neill’s powerful Desire Under the Elms with Brian Dennehy; Groundswell, Off-Broadway, a moving post-apartheid story from South Africa with Larry Bryggman; Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward, starring the incomparable Angela Lansbury and Christine Ebersole; Accent on Youth, a rather disappointing comedy with David Hyde Pierce; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson, a deeply moving production of the black experience in the first decade of the twentieth century; Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett—a superb revival starring Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman, and John  Glover; Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love It by Christopher Durang, at the Public Theater; and the screamingly funny trilogy from England, The Norman Conquests by Alan Ackbourn—Table Manners, Living Together, and Round and Round the Garden.  Don’t miss all three if you get to town. I thank Play-by-Play and Audience Extras for my luck in getting inexpensive tickets for most of these productions. 

I started hiking a little late this season, and on my first outing managed to get thoroughly lost wandering the hills of South Mountain Reservation. I’m not good at reading maps, but could sure have used one today! It’s so nice to spend a balmy, sunny afternoon in the woods after all the rain we’ve had. Think of it…in one month I’ll be in the White Mountains. 

Please let me hear from you. I want to know what you’re doing, how you’re doing, and any adventures you want to share.