Black Fly Derby

We spent the past week at one of my favorite places, the Rap-Shaw Club in the Adirondacks of New York. The Club is one of a handful of surviving old-fashioned Adirondack sportsmen's camps. We became members of Rap-Shaw three years ago joining about 60 other families. The Club occupies two small islands on Stillwater Reservoir in the southwest corner of the Adirondack Park. The reservoir is almost entirely surrounded by the state-owned Forest Preserve. Except for the small settlement of Stillwater at the end of the road, there are no other buildings on the water. The 117 miles of shoreline and 45 small to tiny islands are lined with trees, trees, rocks, trees and a few beaches.

Rap-Shaw is one of the earliest private Adirondack clubs still in operation. Founded in 1896 and incorporated in 1901 the club moved to its current island home in 1942 after an earlier incarnation located further down the reservoir burned to the ground from a presumed lightening strike. The club's original stated purpose was to “afford recreation, legitimate fishing, hunting and camping, to promote the protection of fish and game, the preservation of the forests of and within the State of New York, and to assist in the observation and enforcement of the laws, rules and regulations relating thereto.” [from Otis H. Gardner, The Rapshaw Fishing and Hunting Club, 1901-1961. Syracuse, NY private printing, Jan. 1962] From its beginnings the club was composed of members from all walks of life. “At the Rapshaw Club a railroad brakeman was apt to find himself sharing a bunk with the president of his company.” [from an unidentified clipping in the collection of the Adirondack Museum, quoted in Barbara McMartin, The Privately Owned Adirondacks (2004), p. 49]

To get to Rap-Shaw you need to carefully navigate miles of backwoods dirt road, coming eventually to a parking lot with boat trailers, a ranger station, a general store and a bar/restaurant. Unless you've brought your own boat, now you have to call Jerry, the Rap-Shaw steward, to come over from the island with the club pontoon boat. Jerry built that boat from the pontoons up, funky and functional with wood benches in front and mismatched salvaged seats in the back.

Jerry pulls up to the state dock and loads your stuff. As you approach the island the Rap-Shaw boathouse comes into view with it's beautiful backlit loon logo. Jerry has pulled the club's John Deere Gator onto the dock with at least an inch to spare on each side. Gear goes in the Gator and Jerry roars off to deliver it to the porch of your cabin: Owl, Loon, Gull, Eagle, Chicken or Main Camp. Each cabin is a duplex with a shared bath, except for Main with its three bedrooms. Full occupancy is 28 people. The cabins date from the 1930s and 1940s. They are simple, clean and freshly painted. Comfortable single beds are the rule. Three times a day an old locomotive bell calls all campers to meals in the dining hall. Mike, the cook, turns out tasty meals that are served family style with campers bussing the tables.

As soon as I board the Club boat, I feel my daily cares and chores evaporate. My new daily schedule is up with the sun to walk Joli and listen to the loons, breakfast, boating, lunch, nap, swim, boating, communal cocktail hour on the porch of Main camp, dinner, boating and bed. One of the best features of the Club in my opinion is that each member can bring one dog. Our dog, Joli, knows Rap-Shaw well. She gets to run free, swim at any hour, chase sticks to her heart's delight and feed on table scraps. She also knows where Marie, the housekeeper, keeps her stash of dog biscuits.

Over the past decade the Club has worked hard to maintain its conservationist ethic with an emphasis on fishing and at the same time attract family members and people like us who love the woods and water from a seat in a quietly drifting canoe. Considerable funds were spent to upgrade the camp and make it accessible. The favorable result is measured by a pretty full reservation book and a balanced budget the past three years. The Club elected its first woman president this past year.

On Friday the hard core fishermen, women and kids arrived for the annual black fly derby. Old Adirondack hands know that it's generally a mistake to visit during June because of the clouds of biting black flies. At Rap-Shaw, as a challenge to the bugs, the Club conducts a fishing derby. Everyone hopes that the prevailing winds on the island and on the water will blow the bugs off target. Fishing all day Saturday from breakfast to dinner will give the person who catches the heaviest fish bragging rights for the next year. Small boats bob around the island jockeying for the best fishing hole. Driving rain showers Saturday morning only spurs the competitors on.

In the evening the setting sun glances off the waves and back lights the balsam that grow behind Loon camp. I drift into a peaceful sleep.

Merry has just begun a photo blog where she posts a picture a day. To see more pictures from our time at Rap-Shaw, and for other terrific photographs, check out meredithleonard.blogspot.com.

Circus Flora

It was a warm sunny day last Saturday as we made our way to the parking lot behind Powell Symphony Hall in the downtown St. Louis arts district where a beautiful circus tent awaited. Outside there was a modest pony ride, a concession stand, and an old automatic player circus organ. Inside the tent a wonderland awaited.

Circus Flora made St. Louis its home in 1987. http://www.circusflora.org/ It only runs for a few weeks each year. Every year there is a theme around which the acts are loosely assembled. This year the theme is “Medrano” drawn from the historic Cirque Medrano a/k/a Cirque Fernando that first set up at different locations in Paris in the late 19^th Century and continues as a traveling circus throughout Europe today. The basic story of this year's Circus Flora show is that the beautiful star of Medrano is a sought after socialite who attracts high society to the circus as well as some of the great artists of the time. In fact, famous paintings inspired by Cirque Medrano were done by Toulouse-Latrec [Jane Avril], Degas [Miss La La a la Cirque Fernando] and Renoir [Jugglers at the Cirque Fernando].

The big tent with four tall peaks is night blue inside with crystal chandeliers. At one end of the ring an elaborate red and gold pillared entranceway is capped by a band box where the five person circus orchestra sits. We sat in the box seats next to the ring, but not close enough to get squirted by the clown. The crowd numbered about 1000, with adults outnumbering children two to one.

This one-ring circus strives to be true to its European roots. Throughout the show a narrator in whiteface wearing a gold and sequin embroidered costume roams the ring telling the story and introducing the acts, weaving them into the story. Some acts fit the story better than others, but I don't want to quibble. For the most part the story line enhances a non-stop display of traditional circus skills. No lions, tigers or elephants, just ponies, stunningly beautiful horses, a goat, one main clown, and a comedy dog act with a dozen mixed breed rescue dogs. Interspersed with modest juggling and clown acts are world class performances by The Flying Wallendas on the high wire, Cossacks performing at full gallop on horseback, and The Flying Pages on trapeze. Because the story was set in 19^th Century Paris there were numbers incorporating the can-can and an astounding hoop act where the star encased herself in about fifty rotating hoops at once. Most acts somehow incorporate Nino the Clown (Giovanni Zoppe, one of the producers), in little red knit hat and the obligatory red bulb nose. Nino sometimes has a shadow, a very small child dressed in exactly the same costume.

We were very taken by the local teen acrobats, the St. Louis Arches, who train year round and also perform at the City Museum. http://circusday.org/News.html These kids are of different genders, ages and abilities; all beautifully full of spirit. They jump and tumble and build impossible human pyramids. We were immediately reminded of our teen gymnast neighbor from Syracuse, Taniya Williams, who we both felt would fit nicely into a Arches costume.

After a couple of hours we sauntered back into the sunny afternoon humming circus music. Overall the effect was like a dream play; not exactly a story, no moral or message, just the sights and sounds of a modest and wonderful circus. Circus Flora is theatre at it's best, original, accomplished and completely absorbing. It's a treasure waiting for everyone to discover.

Bucknell 1966

I'm back in St. Louis after a week in the Baltimore suburb of Hunt Valley receiving supplemental ALJ training with about 100 other new ALJs hired last year. It was a long week, often worthwhile. I had the good fortune to be able to spend a good deal of time with friends I made last year in training including Fred Upshall who I recently visited in Albuquerque.

As you know from last week's post, I spent some time last weekend at my mother's house with my brother Rick going through the rooms, sorting things and deciding what to do with them. I brought some pictures and papers home with me that my mother decided to preserve. Among these was a crumbling letter I wrote her during my first month as a freshman at Bucknell University. Here it is:

B729

Bucknell University

Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, 17837

Dear Mom,

Thanks for the umbrella! It came at the right time. It has been raining for 3 days now just a steady mist and a real pour every ½ hr. or so. Last night on the way back to the dorm got caught in a thunderstorm and also got rather wet but it's all in the day. Classes are quite different than I figured. I feel quite comfortable in my Biology and Asian History courses but English and German are still in the doubtful stage. We [dissec]ted a white rat in my first 3 hr. Bio. Lab, but had to buy a dissecting kit and a lab apron. Total costs include charge - $55.61 for books and equipt., cash $8.70 for gym suits and $6.00 for lockers and towels in gym + miss. leaves me with $6.00 cash should be enough to last me for awhile, I hope. I got the gym s[ … ] $7.70 which usually costs $9.88 a savings of over $2.00. I'm trying to keep expenses down but certain things are necessary although those things should soon slack off. Next Fri. Sat. the Fabulous Four Seasons are coming to give a concert and that will cost me at least $2.50 but not more than $5.00. The 5 would be for 2 tickets for there is always that possibility. I still have $50 in my checking account subtracting bills I have not yet paid so I'm set for the time being. Life is good here. All are quite friendly and the profs take a personal interest in the students. The Methodist church is very progressive and operates a coffee house and a college student dinner on Sat. night and the preacher is fab. Will sign of now – Send news!

Love,

Ed

I'm deeply touched my mom thought to save this letter. The low cost of items stunned me as did my obsessive thriftiness. I was on a scholarship that paid my tuition, room and board, but all other expenses had to come from my meager savings and the small amounts my mother and grandmother sent me. I don't remember ever going to the Four Seasons concert and certainly did not have a date, however hopeful I may have been. I dropped out of Biology after one semester of struggle, but still remember my Asian History well. As it turned out I learned to love English lit classes and even remember a bit of German. I went on to manage the coffee house in the basement of the Methodist church and serve as a student assistant pastor for a time. So much pre-figured in a short letter.

As I look through the items found in the crowded drawers and closets, I'm surprised to find so many memories I had presumed lost.

Many of you wrote to tell me your own stories of cleaning out a parent's house. I appreciate these stories very much. The process of sifting teaches everyone an important lesson about mortality and the things we collect as we move along that can't be learned any other way.

Hopefully everyone saw the news that Billy Elliott (see my February 7, 2009 post) was a big winner at the Tony awards recently. Big congratulations and hugs to Erin and Casey Whyland and their proud parents Chris and Melissa.

Home

I'm sitting on the back porch of my mother's house in Hanover, PA. This is the first time in my sixty years I've ever been here when she was not at home. The feeling is eerie. Mom lived here since the early 1950's. Prior to that she lived in the upstairs apartment next door. This old brick house and the one next door were built in the early 20^th Century by my grandparents to house the family. All my life up to age 18 was spent here. Since then I've visited here regularly. Even so, the place is a mystery to me now. This will probably be the last time I visit the house with the contents intact.

For the last thirty plus years since my father died my mother lived alone here. She left her childhood home on the farm after the sixth grade to go to work. I think she married my father in the early 1940's. Mom was only 53 when he died in 1967. She lived most of her life here on her own terms.

Mom worked outside the home from the age of 16 until I was born. She went back to work after dad died and continued to work through her seventies. During her life she was a secretary in a factory, a home health aide, and a cross-country bus tour guide. While raising us, she was dedicated to the Boy Scout movement volunteering in many capacities and eventually earning the highest non-professional honor the Scouts bestow on women, the Order of the Silver Faun.

She was a very strong-willed woman who grew up in difficult times and managed against considerable odds to forge a unique life for herself. She knew how to do for herself and was uncomfortable allowing others to do for her. She held herself to an unreasonably high standard and wanted others to do the same. This trait, for better or worse, she passed on to her sons. It has made me the person I am today.

She taught by example. She taught me to cook and appreciate well prepared food. She taught me to garden. She taught me to read and to discipline my mind. I thank her for these gifts. I use them every day.

I have two brothers. Rick is a year and a half younger than me. Doug is five years younger. They will be meeting me here later today so we can make plans for dealing with the accumulated treasures of a long lifetime. There are some antiques, some photographs, some books, a lot of clothes, her treasured yard and garden and a lot of small items, the meaning of which is lost to me.

I've been looking through a box of old photographs this morning. Mixed through the familiar faces and places are many pictures of people I don't recognize and of whom I've never heard. I'm reminded that I knew only one side of her, really.

Random thoughts and memories are crowding out any calm reflection today. I find it impossible to write the story I intended for this week. Thanks to all of you who sent condolences on my mom's passing. It means a lot to Merry and me. I'll be back in St. Louis and back to writing next weekend.

Towboat

I was in Cape Girardeau this past week holding hearings. One of my Wednesday cases involved a fellow who had worked as a deckhand on the river. Questioning someone about their past work is one of my favorite parts of a hearing. I almost always learn something new and the claimant usually enjoys telling me about work they were good at and generally enjoyed. Having never before lived adjacent to a major waterway I have a lot to learn about work on the river.

Tuesday evening Merry and I walked along the waterfront at Cape. The downtown drops steeply to a riverside rail line backed by a high flood wall. The wall completely blocks the street view of the river. The town has tried to remedy this ugly situation by having the flood wall in downtown covered with interesting murals that depict important events in Cape history. At the foot of certain streets, however, the flood wall is open to the river. These openings can be closed by flood gates. To our surprise the flood gate at the foot of Themis St. was closed. The Broadway gate a block away was open.

People out walking the dog or taking an evening stroll gravitate to the river bank. The river was pretty high on Tuesday leaving only about 15 feet of walkway at Broadway narrowing to none at Themis where it was up to the flood gate. It's hard to imagine the power of the Mississippi. There are no rapids or waves or sound of running water to speak of but the current was silently rushing past carrying large branches and tree trunks. About a half mile downstream we could see the modern Cape bridge spanning about a half mile wide river.

A large barge was very slowly making its way up stream against the current. None of the other strollers seemed to pay it much attention.

The next day I took the deckhand's testimony. I learned there are four basic types of work on towboats: the pilots to navigate, deckhands to wrestle the load, engineers to manage the massive diesel engines, and the cook's staff to feed them all. Towboats push a fleet of barges that are lashed together with heavy one inch steel cables. Crew members work around the clock in six hour shifts, called watches, for thirty days straight, then have thirty days off. Towboats run 365 days a year.

Even though the raft of barges are always pushed by the boat they are still called “tow” boats. According to Wikipedia the term developed on American rivers post Civil War. When steamboat fortunes began to decline steamboats began to "tow" wooden barges alongside to earn additional revenue. Even long after boats began pushing barges the term stuck. In the rest of the world they are called pushboats.

Half of a deckhand's time is taken up doing routine maintenance on the boat: cleaning, scraping, painting and such. The other half of the time a deckhand deals with the load. This means loading the barges, usually with coal, gravel, wheat or other bulky items, lashing the barges together to form the load, and breaking down the load periodically so the whole thing will fit through the giant locks on the upper Mississippi, the Ohio or along the Inland Waterways.

When Merry and I met up in the evening she told me she had visited the waterfront again and noticed a guy standing there with luggage. She talked with him and found out he is a towboat pilot. After a little while a small boat put off from a towboat mid-river and came over to pick him up. As Merry watched them return to the towboat, the little runabout lost power, started drifting and ultimately had to be assisted by the Coast Guard who just happened to be passing by at the time.

Back at the hotel I wandered down to the bar for happy hour. There I met a young guy who works as an engineer on the river. He had driven up to Cape the night before to meet his boat. He told me that every river worker was assigned a “home port.” Getting to work meant reaching your home port at a specified date and time. From there the shipping company is responsible for getting you to your boat whether by van, taxi or even by air. This guy usually works only downstream from Cape, traveling to New Orleans then to Port Arthur, TX to unload and back again. He said he could do two round trips like this in 30 days. When the boat runs low on fuel he calls a tender and is refueled midstream. He said the engines never get cold, except at an occasional dry dock servicing. As with trucking, towboats try to get back loads for the trip up-river, but in these harder economic times they are mostly coming back riding high and empty.

The next day Merry and Joli visited Trail of Tears State Park where she was able to get a vantage point to get some terrific shots of towboats.

The internet has a lot more information on this subject. Of course, the towboat operators have a professional association called American Waterways Operators with a lot of information about jobs on towboats that you can visit at www.americanwaterways.com.

The waterways themselves are policed by the Coast Guard but under the management of the Army Corps of Engineers. There is a pretty interesting propaganda video about the importance of river transportation made by the Corps that you can watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxHIk5ARHLI.

Best of all are the web sites of amateur towboat enthusiasts. I recommend you look at two of the very best: Towboat Joe at http://www.towboatjoe.com/towboat_info.htm and Dick's Towboat Gallery with photos of over 1200 individual towboats at http://www.towboatgallery.com/The_Towboat_Gallery.php.

Prairie

A week ago last Wednesday we started to cross the American prairie from Limon, CO. We drove out of the Colorado mountains the evening before. Limon is just a bit too far from Pike's Peak to see the mountain. We had crossed about 75 miles of the treeless great plains before stopping at dark.

From Limon it is almost 100 miles on I-70 to the Kansas border. We pulled into the Kansas welcome center about 9:00 am. The wind off the mountains was so strong it nearly swept us off our feet. Little sand grains got in my eyes and my cap blew off. A genuine tumbleweed got stuck under the driver's door. The rolling land is farmed as far as the eye can see. We collected a bag of brochures about the wonders of Kansas and our free Kansas sunflower seeds and set off again. The wind blew hard all day.

We were resigned to crossing most of Kansas on I-70. The distances are just too great to use the back roads. Three hours of non-stop driving brought us to Hays. This little city of about 20,000 appears to be the business center of northwestern Kansas. Off I-70 strip malls stretch toward the town center for a mile or so. We headed for the downtown in hopes of finding some regional cuisine. I couldn't help but notice the German heritage of the place: street names, brick architecture and a big sign announcing “the German Capital of Kansas.” Main Street downtown was mostly deserted. We pulled up to a department store that has been converted into a number of small shops. Inside the old-fashioned Soda Shop offered a daily special soup, green bean with dumplings. The special sandwich was blue cheese sliders. Just what we needed.

An hour more on I-70 and we were getting pretty tired of the interstate driving. Merry was leafing through the literature we got at the welcome station looking for an alternative. At Wilson we got off and started to follow the “Post Rock” Scenic By-way.

When white settlers arrived on the prairies in the mid-nineteenth century they wanted to put fences around their farms, something that never occurred to indigenous people. The problem with this plan was that there's a lot of space to fence and virtually no trees for fence posts. All of Kansas, however has vast deposits of limestone just under the surface. Some of this stone was found to be quite soft and workable when quarried, but then hardens when exposed to the air. Thus there are now large areas of farmland encircled by wire fences with stone fence posts that have been there for a long time.

Traveling north from Wilson we not only saw thousands of stone fence posts but signs for “The Garden of Eden.” When we turned toward Lucas, we had no idea of what we would find. On a back street of the little town that calls itself the “Grassroots Arts Capital” we found the amazing homestead of civil war veteran, S.P. Dinsmoor. This concrete jungle gym completed in 1907 can't be described in a few words, but take a look at Merry's picture for an idea. www.lucaskansas.com

We decided to head for Manhattan, KS on a back road. KS 18 is an arrow leading from one set of grain elevators to the next, each eight to ten miles off. For many miles out of Lucas we were surprised by occasional large metal creatures along the roadside sculpted from scrap. When these ran out I was ready for some new amusement. Shortly after a county line I noticed that every crossing road was named with single syllable four letter word. “Barn” was the first one I saw. A little later I glimpsed “Deer'” then “Gate.” I mentioned this to Merry and we started to pay attention. “Hail” road was followed by “Iris.” We now surmised that the county had named each road in alphabetical order. We made a game of trying to guess the next road name, then at the letter Y we reached the county line.

We finally pulled into Manhattan bone tired. The wind was still blowing.

Fairly early the next morning we drove to the 3500 acre Konza Prairie Biological Station on the outskirts of Manhattan. http://kpbs.konza.ksu.edu/ This area of Kansas is called the Flint Hills because the limestone contains outcroppings of harder stone that made the area very difficult to plow and which eroded into unique bluff-like hills. The Flint Hills stretch from Nebraska to Oklahoma and contain the largest expanse of unplowed tallgrass prairie. We walked a six mile trail at Konza and saw many unique wildflowers, bison, school kids, a short horned lizard, and prairie birds including a strikingly red summer tanager. We met a woman who helped do a controlled burn of the grass just a few weeks earlier. “That all went up in a whirlwind of fire in four minutes,” she said gesturing at about 200 acres. Already the grass and flowers were six inches high where the prairie had been burned. Standing on a ridge here, surrounded by open prairie, it's easy to imagine what this country looked like 200 or 2000 years ago. Only 4% of the estimated 140 million acres of original prairie survive.

To get a better feel for the Flint Hills and to get some lunch we drove south on a back road to Council Grove. The Santa Fe Trail passed through this archetypal midwestern small town. We had a good lunch at the Hays House on Main Street. Build in 1857 the Hays House doesn't exactly line up with the modern street. When built it was oriented to the Santa Fe Trail.

Twenty miles on south through grasslands, and more grasslands, with virtually no other traffic, we came to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. This is the heart of Chase County, the center of the center of the country, all prairie except for two small towns, immortalized by William Least Heat-Moon's PrairyErth.

There is little wind today. Standing on the prairie the sun and sky totally surrounds us. As dusk approaches small birds appear. The air smells of grass and dust.

Taos Pueblo

I first visited Taos Pueblo in 1971. I was captivated by the feeling of the place and by the people who have roots there. When Merry and I visited last Sunday I expected the passage of 38 years to have effected major changes in the place. I was wrong. There is a new road to serve the modest new casino and a new community office at the entrance to the village. The ancient pueblo buildings are in slightly better condition than I remembered. Otherwise the place seems unchanged.

To reach Taos Pueblo you drive a few miles north of the artsy village of Taos then a few miles back the road that leads to Taos Mountain. Last weekend this road through dusty sage brush was partly lined by blooming sand plum and choke cherry trees nearer the creek banks. A few miles after passing the casino the road comes to the traditional village where all cars are directed to a small dirt parking lot. All visitors pay a $10 fee to enter and an additional $5 fee for a camera. http://www.taospueblo.com/

The entire village is made of adobe, surrounded by an adobe wall. Red Willow Creek cuts through the middle of the village which is arranged around a large packed earth plaza the same color as the buildings. Multiple story ancient buildings lie on both the north and south sides of the creek. These older buildings have been continuously occupied for more than 1000 years. Every year the adobe has been renewed. Numerous small adobe houses are scattered about. Some seem occupied, some not. The west side of the plaza is dominated by a beautiful church. Tours are offered, but we decided to explore on our own. Tourists are pretty much restricted to the immediate area of the plaza, and no climbing to the upper levels of the pueblo is allowed. The doors to about a dozen houses with items to sell are open to visitors, some in the main structures, some in small outlying buildings.

We were attracted to a one room house with a covered porch. This is the house of Kalbatu White Wolff, a jeweler. He has two tables of nicely made necklaces composed of hishi and silver beads. Hishi are small beads of stone, shell or coral. As soon as we approached he began a fast patter of stories about the pueblo and his family history. He invited us into the 10' x 10' house. He told us his grandfather had owned the house, but that it was much older. His grandfather put in the door and a very small window. Before those modern renovations the house could only be entered by ladder through a hole in the roof. A small cone shaped adobe fireplace was fit into the east corner, made by molding adobe around a tree trunk then removing the tree. He told us he inherited the house, but because the deed was lost he had to petition the tribe for a new one. His case was unusual since he claimed ownership not only to the house but the open porch area that normally would be tribal land, as was all unenclosed land. He was lucky. We purchased one of his necklaces. A few new people approached. He started his patter over at the beginning. We walked on.

The day was clear and just starting to heat up. We walked the length of the north building then crossed the spring full creek on a log bridge. There seem to be more detached houses on the south side, arranged around narrow alleys. At the back of one of these alleys a door was open. I glanced in but saw no one. I called out “hello.” A voice behind a curtained door invited us in. This two room house is the shop and studio of Meko Concha, a potter. A few shelves held some bowls and a half dozen small bear sculptures. I was immediately attracted to the bears. He explained his process of finely screening the micaceous clay he works with. I picked up one of the bears. “Is that one speaking to you?” An 8x10 black and white photo on the wall that looked exactly like Mr. Concha turned out to be his grandfather. The three of us talked for a long time about the politics of native culture. Events from the past two hundred years seem totally present to him. He explained that some of the proceeds from the casino were being used to repurchase the 5 miles in every direction, centered on the Pueblo church, that the Spanish granted to his people. They now own about 100,000 acres including Taos Mountain and the entire Red Willow Creek watershed. “Land and water are politics in New Mexico.”

Outside again the day was heating up. We walked past a line of traditional beehive shaped bread ovens called “hornos.” Dogs slowly shifted from one shadowy spot to a cooler one. We crossed the creek again and entered the 1850 churchyard of San Geronomo. Small bouquets of fresh flowers graced each windowsill inside the cool dark church. The altar is crowded with very old wooden statuary called “santos,” the largest of which represents the Virgin Mary. On this day the santos were each carefully wrapped in pink organza, except for the statue of Jesus. On one side of the altar sits an empty casket, also draped in pink. Native american Catholic churches contain these caskets as a reminder of how the Spanish converted them to christian funeral practices. By the altar rail commemorative candles flickered. We sat in a front pew of the empty church to take it all in. Without saying anything to me Merry got up, went to the rail, lit a candle then came back and took my hand with tears in her eyes. I was overcome with grief. The night before I learned that my mother had died. Here on Mother's Day in a church of a religion that I do not follow the reality of the situation crashed on me and I cried.

We sat there in memory a little while. A man from the village came in to replenish the supply of candles. The spell was broken. Outside again the clear light was blinding. We smiled at a tour guide gathering her charges. Taos is timeless in a way you can only know by standing in its plaza. I smiled. I was glad I had returned. The bear now standing on our mantle in St. Louis reminds us of the day.