That's Not a Rat I Smell

One reason I like installing solar panels is it puts me on a roof, providing a unique perspective on parts of this unique island that I would never otherwise see. Most of my interactions with Long Islanders take place on the roads and in box stores, which can paint an unflattering portrait of a craven populace jockeying their SUV’s and shopping carts as they race to collect things. But from a few stories up, I have developed a tentative fondness for my adopted land.

Last Fall, I spent a few weeks on top of my first flat commerical roof: the blower building of the Bergen Point Wastewater Management Facility - a great example of a place I would never visit otherwise. Translated from technocratese, this is where Suffolk county’s poop goes before they make it go away. Something like a million Mr. Hankies per day, assuming mass regularity.

The view on this job was mostly spectacular. Our panels were angled South towards the sun as it tracked over the Robert Moses causeway and lighthouse, passed an inlet with a nice public dock for fishing, crabbing, or picnicking, then arced over the Great South Bay towards Jones Beach and points West. Along with the wastewater treatment facility and marina, the inland portion of the point is also home to a public golf course trampled by retirees. This vista is sullied only by the relentless fecal/chemical smell carried by the prevailing winds that pass over the 8 gigantic pools of churning brown sludge on the West side of the building. About 10 yards wide by 10 yards deep by 100 yards long, the pools are aerated by blowers until the mixture is inoffensive enough enough to be pumped under the bay and the barrier island, to a egress at the bottom of the Atlantic, 3 miles off shore.

The bosses get ready to take a dip

Constantly blowing gigantic bubbles in gigantic pools of fecal sludge is an energy intensive process, making the plant the biggest consumer of power in Suffolk County. The panels, along with other recent modifications, are an attempt to “green” the facility, though the amount of energy produced by our PV system amounts to little more than a shake in the urinal. Still, the county was willing and able to pay for the best, with features like rubber coated metallic conduit instead of the typical PVC pipes. Despite the bad economy, the plant seemed to have deep pockets. That may be because no watchdog wants to go sniffing around down there. If the guys cleaning up our nasties say they need X amount of dollars, we taxpayers hold our noses and hand over the check.

There were a lot of guys there with a lot of trucks and tools to play with. I’m not sure what exactly they did all week, but they seemed proud of it, and even prouder of the Harleys they rode on the weekend. We dealt mostly with two overseers working out of a trailer. One guy named Bob popped above deck now and then to check on us. Bob was genial, if not particularly quick or suave. However, I couldn’t help but notice he drove a quick, suave BMW M3. Bob’s boss Bill never appeared on the roof, presumably because he was about 300 pounds overweight. He mostly could be found at his desk overseeing the work of the editors at Newsday. I'm sure there was an even lazier guy overseeing him, but I never saw him.

Because this was a county job, our company was required to use union labor, and all workers had to be paid “prevailing wage” for their trade. The roofers and electricians met this requirement, but we PV (photovoltaic) installers don’t have a union, so Neal said I would get paid the prevailing wage for an electrician, or else foreman, which was somewhere around $80 an hour. That sounded just fine to me. Neal didn’t care how much it was, because the he submitted his labor and materials costs to the plant, and they covered that, plus 14% for Neal and his partner, the percentage above the cost that he bid for the job.

A couple of days into the job, a burly union rep also named Bob huffed his way up the ladder uninvited and asked Neal if we needed any union labor. Neal curtly told him we did not thanks. They glared at each other for awhile before Bob took the scissor lift down, promising to return.

Two days later, Bob’s jowly mug dawned over our roofedge horizon again. Neal was away for a long weekend, so I had to talk him down this time. I politely explained that Neal wouldn’t be back until Monday.

“Well, tell him to get in touch with me ASAP. Bob English. He knows my number. The DPW says they’ll pay for us to put a union guy on this job.”

“OK Bob. I’ll pass it on to him. I can’t make any decisions, and Neal told me you might be coming by and to say that we didn’t need anyone.”

“Well, you tell him we want a guy on here. If not, we’ll have to picket, and get a rat out in front of here and everything, and I know he doesn’t want that. It’s not going to look good, and I know he is looking to get other county work, but he knows there are other outfits that want the work, too.”

“Ok, I’ll tell him, but he is out of town until at least Monday.”

Bob glowered at us for awhile, then went down the ladder. Our new installer, a twenty something named Mike, ranted about it for awhile, since we had exhausted other lines of conversation such as Mike’s proficiency in Texas hold-em and his hobby of making his own armor and weapons for battles at medieval fairs. (see Mike below hurling lightning bolts)

Young Mike was outraged that Bob’s job was to basically bully us into paying his friends too much to do work that was rightfully ours. I had seen those rats before outside of other work sites, and never knew what to make of them. My natural inclination is to empathize with the working man, but there was always something offputting about the demeanor of the rat and the listless handful of workers loitering in the rat’s shadow. Now that Bob had outlined the scam for me, I was a little outraged myself. I was also a little underwhelmed. There was probably a day when Bob would have returned with a few more of his brawny union brothers, ready to smash us and our panels with tire irons. That would certainly be more persuasive than milling around in front of a giant Chuck E. Cheese.

Ooh, I'm scared

Still, I was willing to consider Bob’s modest offer. After installing the 108 panels, Sir Mike and I had yet to hand-haul 16 tons of concrete ballast: About 1400 thirty-four pound blocks. I was intrigued by the idea of a highly specialized block-moving union laborer to do it for us. I also didn’t want Bob and his rat to keep us from getting future prevailing wage jobs, which Neal said we had the inside track on.

Concerned, I left a voicemail for Neal about Bob’s visit and threat.

A few minutes later, he texted back:

“How big is the rat?”

Apparently Neal, a construction manager and former union carpenter who had been building on Long Island for 30 plus years, wasn’t worried, so I wasn’t worried.

I texted back: “Nevermind. Sir Mike slayed the rat with his trusty Excaliber, and proclaimed himself King of all Unions on this fair isle.”

I had a few more days on the roof to reflect on the nature of government jobs and union labor, and whether it was a good or bad thing. I was on leave from a union government job back in Jersey. As an tenured ESL professor at a community college, I had locked up 4 day weeks of 15 classroom hours, 30 week years, full health benefits, matching pension funds, and contractually obligated extra pay for any extra work. It is not a job that people leave, but I was lured by a free house with an ocean view almost 100 miles away, and my wife was finally making her MD pay enough to support us while I tried to see if I could make a living in the solar business.

The final days of the wastewater job I worked some with an affable veteran electrician, Richie, who kept asking me questions like: “What did you used to do?” and “What kind of teacher?” As I answered, he kept shooting me squinty looks that asked, “Why on Earth would you want to be out here busting your ass when you could be getting paid to spout off in front of a classroom 3 hours a day?” Finally, he just came out and said it.

Richie has been working almost 40 years. He is 56. He asked me if he looked 56, and I couldn’t lie to him. I said he looks his age, which is better than looking older than your age. He has chronic neck pain. He knew another winter was just around the corner, we could both feel it when the late autumn wind started gusting up on the roof. He just finished paying for his daughter to go to college, and may still have to pay for some grad school because she recently decided she wants to be a teacher.

He is not certain that she can get a job on Long Island, where jobs are hard to come by because teachers are paid and treated well compared to the city. He started as an apprentice right out of high school, but both of his kids went to college, and he is obviously proud that they won’t have to work the way he did. He was perversely glad to tell me that his son already made more than he did driving around selling uniforms, and he got a company car, too.

So my trajectory, from professor to PV installer, is more than a little bit perplexing to him. It looks like the opposite of the American dream.

“I like to pee outside,” I offered in explanation. “I like being on a roof. I don’t mind working. No one bothers me. It’s peaceful.” I didn’t add that I didn’t plan to labor forever, that if I go this route I would start my own business. I didn’t add that I don’t mind sporadic working since it gives me time to write, and that the part of me that doesn’t want to be a teacher or a solar panel installer wants to be a writer. That would make me sound like the dilletante I am. I did add that I am only on leave from teaching, that I could always go back to it, In fact, I was thinking real hard about going back to it when we never got our union laborer and I ended up lugging most of those 1400 concrete blocks around.

“Yeah, I like to be outside, too,” he sighed. He misheard “pee” as “be”, but it is really the same concept. “And no one bothers me. But it ain’t any fun to be out here in January. If my wife was a doctor, I would stay home, watch the kids, make sure dinner was hot on the table for her every night.”

Yes, that was the fourth possibility: be a stay at home dad. I did quite a bit of SAHDing during Darcy’s residency (even though I taught full time in the evenings), and do a fair amount of it now, and it wasn’t as easy as Richie made it sound. Hours at home with young children go by slower than hours in any workplace, blue or white collar. Women survive it by engaging with the kids and/or connecting with other moms. I can only play patty-cake so long, and I can’t see myself breaking the gender barrier on group playdates. I’ve heard the things mothers talk about when they get together, and I can’t bring myself to talk about them.

The job ended, and, challenged by Richie, I left Bergen Point more unsure than ever of which direction to go in. Should I go back to the cushy cocoon of teaching, even if the thought of it didn’t thrill me? Should I strike out on my own, starting a business as a solar contractor? Should I take an even bigger leap and try to make a living as a writer? Through the winter, I spun from one decision to the next to the next and back to the first. The one thing I figured out for sure was, as much as I love my kids, I don’t want to be a stay at home dad.

I envy Richie. He knows what he is. An electrician. He is in a respected trade, with a good outfit. He takes pride in his work, makes a decent living, seems happy, and was eligible for retirement in three years.

Before climbing down the ladder at Bergen Point for the last time, I took a final gulp of the views and the smell. It was beautiful up there. The smell was awful. There was a good and a bad to every job, and you always got used to it.

Eulogy for Dad

Nov 7, 2009 Eulogy

I’d like to thank you all for coming here today, from near and far, to help us say goodbye to my father, Bruce McConnell.

I am going to speak for awhile, and then invite anyone who wishes to do the same. When I am done, I’ll pass on this stick, which my mom would call a talking stick, but my Dad would call a shillelagh, a primitive Irish club. When the stick comes your way, if you want to say something, please do, and if not…just pass it on.


I learned a lot my father, more than I have given him credit for in the past:

I owe my love of nature and the outdoors to my father. He took me fishing on rowboats in Lake Champlain and off piers in the Gulf of Mexico. He taught me how to steer a canoe and build a fire. I spent a lot of my childhood walking in the woods, gliding through the woods on cross country skis, biking through the woods…all passions of his that have become passions of mine.
My father saw a lot of the world, from the wilderness of Maine to the Florida keys to NYC and San Francisco, Europe and Hawaii. He showed me a lot of the world as a child, and since then, I always kept moving and exploring.
My father became a Mets fan with me…no greater sacrifice, especially for someone raised in Philly. Together, we watched the ball go through Bill Buckner’s legs, and Scott Norwood missing wide right.
My father instilled in me the value of education. The way he and my godfather went on about their Princeton days, there was no question of my going to college. And I am still in college.
He modeled a work ethic, and reliability, going to work every day, trying to help suffering patients, and providing for his family.

I’d also like to count my father’s blessings. At one point or another in his life, he was blessed with
a mother and grandparents who thought he could do no wrong
a loyal dog
close friends
a kindhearted sister
a beautiful wife
two not so bad children
three perfect grandchildren
Fat Cat (and Puzzle)
intelligence
meaningful work in a respected profession
more wealth than he could ever spend
a sense of humor, however odd, or difficult for his children to appreciate

However, despite all these blessings, he spent most of the years that I knew him in a great deal of psychic pain. He did his best to hide this pain from the world, and I am not sure any one of us fully understood what caused that pain, and how overwhelming it could be. Sadly, he never found a healthy way to manage his depression. As a result, over time, he drifted further and further away from all of his passions and blessings. At some point he stopped changing, growing, actively living his life. There was hope that retirement could be a clean slate, a chance to use those countless hours that he used to spend immersed in the anguish of others to begin healing himself…but this did not go as we had hoped, and then he was gone, suddenly, before he could turn the tide.


I don’t mean to speak ill of my father, but to try to shed light on a life that had more than its fair share of darkness, and to learn what I can from that, too.

The deeper things I’m trying to learn from my Dad’s struggles are


-to appreciate the many, many blessings I have
-to try to talk to my family and friends and be open about my feelings, bad or good
-to embrace change
-to recognize what I truly want to do next, then go out and do it

A lot of people who are familiar with my Dad’s problems and my involvement with them, have told me recently, “You can’t fix anybody else. It’s not your fault.” I know that. But the final lesson, that came towards the end, was that, if someone is unable to appreciate, to communicate, to change, to grow…to LIVE…it is not necessarily their fault either. They may be dealing with a something that we can’t see or fully understand, but something very real and crippling nonetheless. They may be far braver than we know.


So Dad, I love you, and it’s not your fault.



After people shared rememberances, I played this song, "Shine" by David Gray, which I first heard about a week after my father died, and expresses the way I feel about the whole passing.

(Gray wrote "Shine" after reading a lot of Yeats, especially "Ephemera")

Rise of the Palindrones

For awhile there, Michelle Obama and I were hesitantly starting to feel good about being American again. Months after his kick in the crotch of a re-election, Bush had already spent all of his political capital, foolishly and in one place. One by one, those capable of changing their minds to adapt to the realities of the world around them were forced to admit that he was a crappy President, or at least just shut their mouths when we admitted it for them. If only a few of them had been just a few weeks quicker on the uptake, but, hey, at least I don’t have to watch Bush smirk and swagger and pretend he understands something I don’t anymore.

At least, with McCain and/or Obama, things were guaranteed to get at least a little better. I’ve always liked McCain. He may be hot headed, past his prime, and possibly insane (who wouldn’t be after what he’s been through), yet he’s always been a candid, openminded and unorthodox Republican, so unorthodox that Rush and the other mullahs of right wing talk radio tried to bring him down with a fatwa. I was sure that the GOP would nominate the biblical bass playing governor or the shiny Mormon CEO, someone that would make the thought of having our country hijacked by the Red states again in November scarier than that old devil preaching on the doorstep in Poltergeist II.

“I’m asking for your vote, but I don’t really need it.”

But when McCain sealed the deal in March, I finally had a pleasant choice in front of me: praline or chocolate chip cookie dough rather than the past menus of vanilla or dog poop. At the very least we’d have a warrior hawk in place of a chicken hawk, a man saved from a POW camp instead of a barstool, someone who has shown willingness to work with the other half of our country instead of treating them like a new maid after Laura’s pearl earrings went missing.


For sprinkles there was the giddy, audacious hope of a thoughtful, hip, wordly, eloquent, non-inflammatory, and, yes, half-black dude becoming President, which, almost everyone would have to admit would be bit of a good thing for many obvious reasons. With Obama we might even finally, in my lifetime, get a truly great politician. (Don’t tell me Reagan was great because he wasn’t. Reagan was charismatic and effective. Obama is charismatic and might be great.) The best case scenario made my heart race with excitement instead of the anxious palpitations that W. triggered in 2000 and 2004. Meanwhile, the worst case scenario of McCain was far better than present reality. As much as I thought Obama was the bomb, and as much as it appalled the Obama sheep, I was still undecided. John McCain had earned my consideration through service and attempts at bi-partisan reform, and I would be listening to what they both said and watching what they both did until the big day.


And what did John McCain do to moderates like myself? He Sarah Palined us, right in the back of the head. Governor of Alaska? Mayor of Wasilla? A spunky born-again pro-life dame to siphon off the disenfranchised Hillary crowd? Had his lost his mind entirely? But, as the rest of the country reacted, it became clear that the decision was not foolhardy. No, it was calculated, cunning, and inexcusable, inexcusable because it was purely political. Barack clearly mulled long and hard about who he could best command the most powerful military in the history of the world should he get gunned down like a moose, and he came up with as respectable and sound, though dull, a choice as could be made. John McCain went for the attractive hockey mom on a mission from God, who seemed both unfamiliar with and spiteful of the workings of the government she was supposed to lead.


Why Senator McCain? Tell us why?
To help you shake up Washington?
But Senator, that’s not a VP’s job.


What is the job? Even she doesn’t know. That’s real funny. Let’s clarify, though, really, because this is kind of important. A VP’s job, especially when her P is 72 and clearly having good days and bad days, is to be ready to lead this country on Day 1. Not to get ready…the Vice Presidency is not a journey of personal discovery. Beat. Smirk. She should have spent the last 12 to 30 years getting ready, perhaps showing some interest in the doings of the United States of America (other than asking it for money and then making fun of it later for giving it to her). She should have been at least subscribing to The Economist and Foreign Affairs, becoming mildly familiar with the big crazy world she’ll be wrestling with in the case McCain has a stroke or starts smearing his own feces on the bathroom wall.

But she is not ready by any rational standard. And this is not debatable.


-Wasilla (pop. 9000) isn’t even a city. I live in a small city (pop. 20,000) which is way more complex than Wasilla, and I saw my mayor for the first time today as he gave a small speech to a small crowd in front of a giant check that the Tennis Association gave for the new courts at Memorial Field (which are great, by the way.) So, this is the type of shit mayors do, I thought, watching Jordan Glatt execute one of his actual duties and responsibilities while connecting with the tennis dads and moms. He seemed good at it, and he seemed like a decent guy. Could he be good President? I wondered. Maybe? Maybe? No. Definitely not.


-Alaska (pop 670,000) isn’t even really a state. I say this because I lived in Hawaii for two years, and people in those time zones are not Americans like you and I are Americans. They are, and I respect them for it, drop outs, wackos, outliers, bushmen, looking at the mainland (Alaskans call it "Outside") with distrust and envy, like a successful pompous cousin they have to endure at Thanksgiving, the one who doesn’t know shit about shit and won't let you forget that you still haven’t paid back that 5 grand they loaned you.


-Her education was sketchy. 5 low tier colleges in 6 years, with no available records, ending up at University of Idaho, producer of such great American thinkers and leaders as…wait, hold on while I google it. Ok, ok, I recognize two names on the list, Mark Felt aka “Deep Throat” and former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, aka “Happy Feet”. After throwing her cap into the Moscow sky, she was so motivated to serve the people of this country that she didn’t waste time studying law or political science or international affairs, she went right back to serve her people as a sportscaster at KTUU Anchorage.

Now, Obama, the black guy with the single white mom, started at Occidental College, graduated from Columbia, went on to spend long days for little money helping the working poor in Chicago, and then went back to school and ended up President of the Harvard Law School Review. I myself didn't get into Harvard Law School (politics, man), but I'm not too bitter to acknowledge that Obama must have gotten his position because some of the brightest young leaders in the country recognized intelligence and leadership potential in their classmate. Call me liberal elite (really, please, I like the way it sounds), but people that just disregard Obama’s type of achievement and commitment and celebrate W’s and Sarah Palin’s lack thereof are terrifying. The glorification of ignorance and mediocrity scares me as much as any problem in this country, more than terrorists, because it is destroying us from within.

I’m not saying Sarah Palin is definitely too stupid to do the job. Nevermind that she’s seems to have only recently taken an interest in large swaths of the world, like anywhere with alternating days and nights. Nevermind that she wanted to ban books and she doesn’t believe in evolution or that she didn’t know what Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac do exactly. She has shown that she is smart enough to read a speech by W’s speechwriter with the same snarky, nasty, petty sense of humor that fat white drunk Republicans slurp up like Ruths Chris’ mashed potatoes. She could turn out to be the next Hillary or even Oprah, for all I know, but, here are the things:

1. I DON’T KNOW. I have no idea how stupid or smart or good or evil she is because no one legitimate can vouch for this person. And there is no reason for me to give her the benefit of the doubt when my childrens’ future is at stake. There are plenty of qualified, vetted candidates out there. God I miss Huckabee.


2. JOHN McCAIN DIDN’T KNOW WHEN HE PICKED HER. He had met her once or twice. He doesn’t think she is his soul mate, he thinks she’ll fire up the bible base that can't wait until he gets fast tracked to hell and another leader with God at the top of her speed dial can start holy wars and select Supreme Court Justices. He barely tolerates Bush, but he chose a Barbie Bush because he knows that if you prop up a small-minded, downhome fella or gal the downhome dumbos will go bananas, and the downhome dumbos are a way bigger voting bloc than hockey moms. He cynically chose someone who would be more useful to his campaign than to his country. He also chose someone who polarizes us further, making red and blue voters start to circle each other like cagefighters again. We desperately need the opposite of Sarah Palin. We need to find people and ideas we can agree on and focus on them for awhile. And for all of the above, he has lost my consideration.


3. YOU CRAZY PEOPLE, THE ONES WHO ARE ACTING LIKE PRINCESS DIANA JUST REINCARNATED AT THE XCEL ENERGY CENTER…YOU DON’T KNOW SARAH PALIN EITHER.

Don’t tell me you do, you placard waving imbeciles, because you don’t. You’re allowed to see something in Sarah that I don’t, fair enough, but wait at least a few weeks before you tell me you're in love. I fully flipped on this when I heard that my brother-in-law had joined, literally, the Sarah Palin Fan Club. He is the only informed and intelligent Palin backer I've encountered, and I’m not sure why he is so infatuated (I'll hear soon enough). Is it the glasses? Her sassiness? Her ethics? (You know who was big into ethics? Larry Craig. And Eliot Spitzer.) My brother-in-law is currently an ex-pat, observing the race from his villa on a Carribean island, so maybe he identifies with his new heroine’s “outside the beltway” perspective.

It doesn’t matter what he likes about Sarah, my point is that his attraction is inherently superficial, because he didn’t know Sarah Palin from Tina Fey before August 29th. He, like half of this crazy country, just got to third base on the first date with the hottest thing in Wasilla, and now they’re ring shopping. Surely, you all, in your personal lives, wouldn’t rush into such a commitment (unless maybe your mother’s political career depended on it). Surely you agree that it takes 100 days to get to know the real person in a relationship, but Senator McCain didn't give us 100 days. So, you all made up your tidy little minds in 6. But if she turns out to be a nut job on Day 88, like so many crushes do, we all pay for it.

If you are tired of reading, here is Mr. Matt Damon’s surprisingly incisive rant on the subject of “Who the heck is Sarah Palin?”





He’s so down to earth, so plain spoken, not like those other Hollywood movie stars. Cute, too. He inspired me to write this entry. You know, I think he would be a great President.

And, finally, don’t compare Palin’s lack of experience to Obama’s. For 8 years, Obama was a State Senator from Illinois, representing a district with more citizens than some states, states like oh, say, Alaska. These are people from the heartland: blacks and Hispanics and (mostly) whites, hockey moms and corn moms and lacrosse moms and crack moms and gay dads, gun loving hunters and gun loving gangsters and their 7 year old drive-by victims. In other words, America. He has been one of our nation’s 100 Senators for over 3 and a half years. This is his sixth campaign. If he had any more experience he'd be a "Washington insider" like McCain.

He has written (well) two widely read books, and been on the campaign trail, with his every word, action, and association open to scrutiny and his dirt begging to be dug, for 19 nitpicking months. 21 times he had to go toe to toe with the health care mom, the original pit bull in a pantsuit, on the podium with the country watching. That kind of vetting may not be as tough as 5 years in an NVA prison camp, but it would leave most of us sobbing in the fetal position and begging for release. As someone who pays attention and gets information from a variety of media sources, I can say with 100% certainty that this man is not a Muslim terrorist plant (if he were, wouldn’t they have thought up a better name?) I wish I could be as certain about Sarah Palin, but I can’t, and neither can you.

Epic Day

It was Sunday and I had already made pancakes, fixed the gliding rocking chair, tightened Luke’s crib, then ridden the wave of inertia to take on the broken screen door that had nearly faded off my to-do list, and finally written up near perfect modals/conditionals quiz before the Starbucks reached its half-life. Darcy interrupted my groove to say she wanted to go to Trader Joe’s while the boys were still napping. She had been sick all weekend, so I offered to go if she wasn’t feeling up to it.

“No way,” she said, “I need to get out of the house. Besides, you got to go to Home Depot this morning.”

True, I did get to go to Home Depot. To go to Trader Joe’s on top of that would just be shameless hedonism. And I had gotten some big items crossed off my list. Bonus: while Darcy was still shopping and the boys still napping, I snuck upstairs to watch Tiger make two classic shots: a pure 5 iron followed by a 21 foot downhill “slider” putt to get the birdie he needed on the 18th hole to win his 64th title, his 5th straight on the PGA, his 8th straight worldwide…in HD!!! We’ve had HD for 8 months, but I thought I had to pay extra or get some special cables or something to actually see it. I finally found the stations that carried it way up in the 200’s. This has brought newfound clarity to my life, just in time for March Madness and the Masters.

Lucy and I celebrated Tiger’s achievement by taking a stroll and soiling some of the town’s most exclusive and well-manicured properties in that extra sweet extra evening light that had been oppressive darkness just a week ago, and would have still been dark this week and next had some genius not decided to start daylight savings a few weeks earlier.

Yes, I was feeling great, until I got this email from Ted about his day on the slopes at Tahoe:

You should've been there. It was a 9.0 out of ten: sunny off and on, snowing off and on, a foot of fresh snow, and we hiked 30 minutes to the top of Mt Judah to do an untracked run. Couple of beers, a few tokes*, all in all a great day.

I had had a great day, too, of the New Fun variety, but here was Ted soiling that with his Old Fun gloating. That’s been his game ever since it was Ted, me, and Scooter living in our first apartment on Maui, figuring out how to optimize paradise on 7 dollars an hour, making steady progress as a team, when, in the course a couple of weeks, Scooter, then I, suddenly, without warning, both barricaded ourselves in our rooms with lockdown, unofficial live-in girlfriends, who only came out to use the bathroom for half an hour two minutes before Ted needed to.

That happened around Christmas time, so Ted made sure to share his pointed New Year’s resolution with us: “I’m gonna hook up more this year.”

To everyone’s surprise, he went out and did it, sampling the exotic fruits of the island while Scooter and I spent more and more sunny days and tropical nights in our bedrooms, entangled in circular, skull-wrenching arguments.

Since then, I have been certain that every bit of fun Ted has had has been to spite me. My lockdown girlfriend eventually crated me up and shipped me back to the mainland, to New York City. (Eventually to become my lovely lockdown wife.) And just when I thought I was over Maui, Ted would ruin my sidewalk brunch with a dawn report about the head high glassy swells at Honolua and the California divorcee he had met on the boat the day before, and only just dropped off at her hotel on his way to the break.

Eventually, Ted got locked down himself, and he was laid up with a hurt neck for awhile, so there were fewer glowing surf and scamming reports to rile me further up as I flipped through traffic reports on the LIE. However, he read my New Fun manifesto, I’m certain, and decided it was time for a new offensive, one that went straight after my weakness, my affinity for mountains and snow. He left Maui (a necessity after 10 years, haoles who stay in the sun too long end up with skin like a potato you find behind the stove – an affliction the locals happily call “haole rot”) and started anew in the Bay Area. Now, he’s snowboarding in Tahoe every other weekend and making sure I hear about every turn. They’ve had an epic season, and I am happy for Ted, I really am.

Ted’s companion on the mountain, Johnny A.: “was a mess, as you might guess. Smoking hash-laced keef (not sure what that is nor how to spell it) and hash-oiled and weed-filled joints, trying to do three sixties but pulling out and landing like a beached whale, cutting in line, yelling at random people, calling his buddy in SF to give him the half hour updates. He died his hair and beard orange, but you could still tell it was him.”

This was the same Johnny A, with whom I had my last unbridled week of old fun in Whistler, 5 years ago already. Johnny A., the wildman whom I saw voluntarily poop himself in the surf at Hookipa (some things you can’t unsee), letting it slide down his leg before paddling out, with the theory that it all comes out in the salty wash.

My new buddies also poop themselves, involuntarily though, and hopefully not for much longer. I put aside Ted’s email to watch them hold hands and jump around in a circle singing, “Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posy”, skipping the part about the ashes, which they don’t have down yet, and falling down in a fits of laughter, again and again and again and again. Andre then grabbed a tambourine and told me (not asked) to play guitar while he jammed along on percussion, showing more rhythm than 20% of Caucasian males, of any age. I could smell Darcy’s grass fed meatloaf was almost finished, and I cracked open my one and only Long Trail of the evening before taking on the Times Sunday Crossword. I’d say the day was at least a 9.2 out of 10. I’d say it was epic.

*of cloves

May-December

It started innocently enough. A friendly, mutual admiration between neighbors, across the street, on a perfect Spring day, a neighborhood not unlike Wisteria Lane, only sitting atop a bluff, with an ocean view.

“You are always working so hard,” said she.
I blushed. “Not as hard as you. Look at those shrubs. They’re perfect. You’ve been out here all day.”

We were both happily married, though neither of our spouses shared our passion for yardwork. My wife thinks life is too short to not pay someone else to do such things. Her husband of 60 years, Ari, between his ailing hip and glaucoma, rarely goes outside at all anymore.
One day a few years ago, as I was planting some Montauk daisies, she snuck up behind me, tapping me on the shoulder, in a breathless whisper, “Some candies for you. A treat for working so hard.” Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks were rosy from the scurrying across the street. In the late afternoon light, she didn’t look a day over 70. As suddenly as she had appeared she was gone. “I have to hide from them. They don’t want me to leave the yard,” she explained in tiptoeing retreat. “They think I am crazy old lady and I bother people.”

“Not at all. They’re crazy,” I replied. “They” were Melissa and Charles, her 50 year old daughter and son-in-law who shared the large, modern house with them.

“Thank you,” she said. “You are so kind.”

I was kind, wasn’t I? Not like Melissa and Charles, locking up this sweet old lady and telling her she was crazy. She was perfectly coherent, not to mention a tireless worker. Exhibit A in her sanity defense: she appreciated the work I had done on the old cottage. Painting the house, putting up a mailbox with a flower bed around it, tulips around the lightbulb, daffodils in front of the beech trees, a slate walkway with an adjacent bed of sea grass, sedum, Shasta daisies and black-eyed Susans, a railing along the open covered porch with flower boxes. Mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges. She always mentioned how hard I worked, how great everything looked, and she always conjured the jelly candies, the round sugar coated ones of different colors. I was usually on some version of Atkins that insisted I throw such poison over the cliff, but they were a gift, and I had a weakness for them, as soon as I opened the lid, ten or twelve were gone.

Seasons passed, we planted things, things grew, and we trimmed them. One afternoon she mentioned a branch over the driveway, how nice it would be if I could ever cut it, as it was blocking the view of the sea from their window. If I did, she would give me $100, for the babies, of course. Darcy was quite pregnant with the twins. Why not, I thought, and said, but I told her sternly not to give me any money. But when I did cut down the branch, a day later a card appeared in the mailbox, with a hundred dollar bill and a long note…

“You are too, too, kind. Now, when we look out our window…sometimes we can see a little boat. You have made us so happy.”

An ethical dilemma. Taking money from a sweet old lady didn’t feel right, but neither did giving it back. And how would we give it back without blowing her cover, letting the tyrannical Melissa and Charles know that she had been crossing the street, giving out landscaping advice and dropping Benjamins like she was Puff Diddy at Scores. They would lock her up, she would never prune in the sunshine again. Besides, Melissa didn’t seem to work and Charles taught pharmacology. How could they afford their 1.1 million dollar house (thanks Zillow) without help from Ma and Pa? She was probably loaded, and babies did need new shoes, or would eventually, once they and their feet came out.

Victoria's New Improved View

When the babies came and we went walking, Victoria would sneak out to admire them, always with the candies, “for the babies”. Darcy had given birth to twins during her fourth year of med school, a feat that garnered her constant and deserved praise. But Victoria, God Bless her, still thought I was the meow of the cat.

“You are so lucky to have such a good man to help you with these babies. I see how he is with them, holding them, feeding them, walking them all the time.”

This implied that she spent a lot of time watching us, but that did not bother us, since she had already stated it outright. Their little section of the house had a living room facing our house and the ocean beyond, and there they watched TV, and occasionally, thanks to me, they watched a little boat go by, but if we were around, they watched us. Big Brother. When I first heard this, I winced to think of how many times I had scratched or picked or peed where I shouldn’t, thinking no one was around, but apparently, all she saw was the good stuff, digging and cooking and grilling and vacuuming and cuddling in constant effort to make this homestead a safe happy one for my family. And, apparently, she never saw Darcy do anything remarkable, since she never remarked on how lucky I was to have Darcy.

On Halloween, we dressed the babies up and hit a few houses, theirs included. I finally met Ari, the husband, who had disappeared for more than a year after a motorcyclist on a crotch rocket catapulted himself over Ari’s minivan into a telephone pole, a deadly collision of deteriorating motor skills and excess testosterone. The mother of the deceased even tried to sue Ari, despite multiple witnesses who saw the biker going “at least 80” on the two-lane North Country Road across from McNulty’s Ice Cream Parlor on a busy summer Sunday.

He was happy to see us on Halloween, though, and I was happy to see that he was my second biggest fan. “Look at what this man gave you,” he told Darcy, pointing to the twins, “you are so lucky.” In over a year I had never heard anyone say anything remotely like that, and, frankly, it felt nice. He also was a watcher of The McConnell Show. “I saw you throwing the babies. He threw them so high, and they were laughing, laughing. You couldn’t throw them so high.”

Turning to me, “They will play soccer, yes?”
“Of course,” I said, not wanting to upset the German. “If they don’t have the balls or hand-eye coordination to play any real sports,” I didn’t say.

Trick or treating across the street

Over the winter, a Noreaster blew down another big branch on our property, and we got a hundo in the mailbox for God’s efforts. Yes, we kept it. Daniel Quinn, in Ishmael, says there are two types of people in this world, the leavers and the takers. Darcy and I realized long ago we are takers and we are fine with that.

Finally, last weekend, I saw my chance to give back. Spring had finally arrived in all its glimmering glory, a day so nice that I was happy to spend it attacking the epidemic of dandelions on our lawn with my secret weapon, “The Weed Hound”. I filled up 6 five gallon buckets with dandelion matter, I weed hounded until I had blisters, then hounded some more.

The weed hound at work

Victoria snuck out to admire my work and my hound, as she had the previous summer. “I told him (Ari) what to get, and he brings me this.” Disgusted, she showed be a bulky device that the Spanish Inquisitors might have dug clams with. It clearly lacked the flawless design and efficiency of the hound, something a German like her could appreciate. “I told him I am going to hit him in the head with this.” Ouch! German humor! I told her again she could borrow my hound, but she wanted her own, and I told her again what it was called and where he could find it in Home Depot.

But, I needed to go to Home Depot, and what better way to pay her back and relieve some of my taking-money-from-old-ladies guilt than to gift her a weed hound. Which I did. I brought it to her door that very evening, around sunset, and I could tell she was so happy, she even gave me a little peck on the cheek.

The next day, in our mailbox was a thank-you note (expected) and $23.86, the exact price of the weed hound, plus tax (not expected). Okay, that was weird, it was supposed to be a gift, but she is old and German, so...
Then there was the controversial note, which I will reprint below and allow you to parse:

Dear, SWEET, Derek,

First, I would like to say, I am sorry, (only TODAY) for not inviting you in
(YESTERDAY!) I apologize to you for this. Thank you for your
kindness, we appreciate very much your help. From now on, this will be my
favorite gardening tool! Every time I use it, I’ll remember your
gesture.

I dare to say, LOVE, Victoria

Like with most cards, I noticed the money, and some words inside intended to thank, and tossed it aside. Darcy and my mother, who was visiting, performed a thorough semantic analysis. Based on the regret for "not inviting you in", and the timid “dare to say” followed by the bold release of “LOVE”, they are now convinced and telling anyone who will listen that Victoria is completely, madly in love with me, that the McConnell Show has become, in her mind, a trashy romance with Fabio as me on the cover of the DVD, shirtless and muscled, the ocean breeze blowing through my hair, brandishing my trusty gardening tool.

I, for the record, think she is just a sweet old lady who shares my enthusiasm for landscaping.
Still, I may focus on some projects in the backyard for awhile, just to let things simmer down a little.

Donkeys, Grand Taxis, and Camions

We will never have another Christmas like the Christmas of 2004, when we went to visit my sister, Kate, during her stint in the Peace Corps in Morocco. It was, like the original, an epic journey with gifts brought from afar. There were donkeys, and innkeepers (though ours had plenty of room). There was snow and presents and joy. There were no infants, but Darcy did give a gynecological exam to an eight-month pregnant Berber lady.

On Christmas eve morning we awoke in Marrakesh, had a quick Petit Dejuener at an outdoor café, with the usual spread of coffee, omelette (just eggs, really), pan with butter and jelly, and jus du orange. These cheap, satisfying continental breakfasts were always a sane, civilized, comfortable way to start a day that was likely to be insane, uncivilized, and uncomfortable.

Even before 9 am a few hustlers and showmen were already at work in Djama El Fna, the open, mostly deserted plaza that had been a smoky, teeming street fair just hours before. A snake charmer tended to his serpents as a cat (probably on the payroll) displayed curiosity bordering on idiocy, stalking in way too close to the blanket of cobras.

I wanted to take a picture, which meant I was obliged to give the man a few Dirham, which meant he had to grab a Cobra and insist that he touch its belly to my forehead, for good luck. I have always been wary of snakes, and, just a few days into our trip, I felt the same way about Moroccan men. But neither phobia was irrational, and to prove it, I was going to stand still and let the charmer put me in his act. As soon as the snake and I touched, I instinctively started to pull away, but the snakemaster was going to punish me for falling for the oldest trick in his book, and he wrapped the cobra around my neck like a cool, slimy scarf. I wouldn’t say I freaked out (Darcy would), but, if it had been an audition for the part of Cool Hand Luke, I wouldn't have gotten the part, not even a callback.

Another day in Morocco had begun. We took a Petit Taxi to the outskirts of the city to buy wine and spirits and real cheese at the one place in Marrakesh where you can find such things, the Marjane. Petit Taxis really are truly petit, little 4 door hatchback Peugeots that you could easily pick up and toss in the back of a Ford F-150. The Marjane is like a Walmart/Grocery Store in one, but after a few days in the dark, winding souks, with no center and nothing super about them, it was like a morning tour of heaven and hell. We soaked up the flouresecent rays, and eventually secured 560 Dirhams worth of whiskey, wine, Camembert, veggies, pasta, and chocolate, and stuffed it in our backpacks. We would be hauling it for Christmas Eve dinner in Ounsghart, a small Berber mountain village at the top of Kate’s valley, tucked beneath the jagged peaks that make up Toubkal National park. Darcy and I had no idea how far it was, physically and psychologically, from the Marjane to Ounska, but we would soon find out.

We took another Petit Taxi to the airport, where Kate’s bag of presents from home, misplaced three days earlier by Royal Air Maroc, was supposedly ready to be picked up.

The lost baggage line was not too horrible, although the unusually chubby and cheery Moroccan behind the desk was certainly taking his time, saying way more than one would think needed to be said considering the business at hand. When it came our turn, he told us, in near perfect English, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak English. I only speak Arabic.”

Frowns. Beat. Smiles. We laugh. Good one.
We gave him our tickets. Some clicking of the computer, then another frown.
“Your bag is not here. It’s in Marrakesh.”
I was furious, but I tried not to sound it. I didn’t want lose my cool and be an ugly American. Firmly, “We called here this morning. They said the bags were here. Are you sure?”
Kate pointed out that this, was, in fact, Marrakesh.
“Oh, yes, my mistake,” he said, eyes atwinkle like Saint Nick.
“Aaah,” I said, pointing at him, very mildly amused, “You.”

He walked around us, opened a door, put his finger against his nose, and there lay the bag, a Christmas miracle. Even more miraculously, it was just as full as when we put it on the plane. Kate’s new used Imac was still wrapped in her new fleece pajamas, packed in with lots of other warm presents, even the red, white and blue book with “America” in big block letters on the front, everything had made it past customs and thieves.

This was no small thing, as the Moroccan custom sieve can be oddly selective. Months earlier, Kate asked for a globe from home, perhaps to try to show her villagers what color their country was, how many centimeters they were from more influential countries, etc. My mom found an inflatable globe, perfect!, and sent it hurriedly, happy to be of use. A few weeks later, Kate was called down to Marrakesh and scolded severely by some customs agents. Her crime? The globe, which they had taken upon themselves to blow up, did not clearly demarcate Western Sahara, a long disputed spit of desert land south of Morocco, as being part of Morocco's domain. The globe was taken away, tortured, then punctured repeatedly. Later, a friend of my mom’s found a globe that did show Morocco and Western Sahara as being lawfully united, and sent it on to Kate. Again she was summoned to Marrakesh, scolded, and not allowed to take her toy with her. This time, the agents mistook the Tropic of Cancer for a lie of the West.

So, getting that bag back, with everything in it, was a good start on the road to Christmas.
We crammed our stuff and ourselves into another Petit Taxi, and it was off to the Grand Taxi stand to find a ride up to Asni, the commercial center at the base of Kate’s valley where the Grand Taxi’s stop and the mountains begin.

We let Kate choose from the fleet of drivers and their tan 1970’s Mercedes sedans and negotiate the price.

Kate was our interface, she had the languages (French, Tashalheet, and some Arabic) and the chutzpah to get deals done. We were fine with that, until the taxi stand, where, with dozens of waiting taxis to choose from, she led us over to one Mercedes and began talking Tashalheet business with a man who was staggeringly drunk, in any language, at noon.

“Kate,” Darcy and I both said sharply, “That guy is not driving us. He's trashed.”

She wasn’t sure if he was, but a few moments later it was determined that he was merely one of the driver’s entourage, a relief, though still not encouraging. She reported that we would be heading up to Asni as soon as the taxi was full.

The three of us and 1 driver seemed plenty full to Darcy and I. This was a mid-sized sedan, not a limousine, but Kauotar explained the way things worked: one bought a share in a Grand Taxi for 12.50 Dirham, and there were six shares in every cab. That meant two in the front with the driver, the middle-man trying not to get impaled on the stick shift, and four in back, squished together like a package of weiners for the 45 minute, 45 kilometer ride.

“Could we just buy out all six shares?” I ventured. “We kind of need to get going, don’t we? That would be like, what, nine bucks?”

This was a possibility, Kaoutar admitted, reluctantly. She didn’t like thinking in bucks, she had spent the last months adopting the mindset of a poor Berber wench who needed to pinch every last Dirham. Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to live among the people, not go bling-blinging around in taxis only 4/7ths full. I insisted that we get our own cab, I would pay for it, even though Kate was disappointed that we wouldn’t fully “experience” a Grand Taxi, Berber style.

The ride was plenty experience enough for both Darcy and I. While Kate wished we could all have a Berber buddy in our lap, all Darcy wanted for Christmas was a seatbelt. She has always been safety-minded, and, even though this driver was not as reckless as some we’d heard about, a ride in a Third World country without a restraining device was, adrenaline-wise, like day at Six Flags for her.

While Darcy dug her nails into Kauotar’s knee in the back, I was content to experience the sights and sounds of the Moroccan roadside and countryside without the pressure of a Moroccan against my ribs. The taxi lacked not only seatbelts, it had no functioning –ometers of any sort, and the windows didn’t roll up. It did have handsome curtains covering the rear window, however, and it had a functioning tape deck, which provided a nice backdrop of Berber music for our ride through the fields and up the pink, stony hills into Berber land. Twangy, snaking guitar melodies were laid over layers of goat skin drums, with Tashalheet vocals that occasionally leapt into a alarmingly shrill “Le-le-le-le-le-le-le-le-le…”

I asked Kate if that was a human making that noise, and, if so, what it signified. She said Berber women made the shriek, she’d even seen it done at weddings. She didn’t understand all the lyrics, but you could count on Allah getting praised in most songs. There were some love songs, as well, she had deciphered a few lines, like:

“I saw you in the fields,
I asked your father about you…”

As the Berbers sang, drummed, and picked, I observed a lot of folks in the fields, and gazed at the amazing amount of life visible from the cab window. Cart-pulling donkeys were beaten by stick-wielding boys . People were riding mopeds and donkeys Moroccan-style, which meant overloaded, with both legs nonchalantly swung out over one side. Women hauled giant bags of supplies on their heads, or enormous bundles of firewood on their backs. Gendarmes stood in the middle of the road, crisply dressed in blue uniforms and white caps, looking well-groomed and vaguely malicious, eyeing the nervous motorists, searching the stream for an unlucky suckerfish to reel in and shake down. Blue and rainbow painted camion trucks were packed in like dumpsters with supplies, livestock, and passengers peeking their scarved and hooded heads over the rail. Stray dogs roamed freely, scouting the herds of goats and sheep, and clusters of chickens. I was struck, not for the first or last time, by the omnipresence of people in the landscape, no matter how remote or harsh. It was a remarkable sight for Long Islanders who exist primarily in their homes, offices, and cars, and only go outside occasionally, in nice weather, for a jog or to walk the dog. I can drive all day and see maybe a handful of humans on the side of the road. In Morocco, men, women, and children, (but especially men) “gare” or sit… against walls, under trees, or on their favorite rocks in the middle of fields, near no structures or landmarks.

Adding to my enjoyment of the ride were the warm rays of the sun on my arm after two days and nights of shivering in Marrakesh. I was down to a single layer, no long underwear or undershirts. When we left JFK it had been 20 degrees, but in the First World, one merely darts from one overheated enclosure to the next, with thick overcoats to ward off the cold in the moments between.

Marrakesh never got below freezing (we saw signs of thermometers or weathermen, so I can’t give a figure), but the cold was creeping and relentless, intent on worming its way into our guts. The buildings had no heat, and their construction, designed to temper the brutal heat of the summer, turned most indoors into stone and tile ice-boxes. We had blankets, and we had brought lots of layers, but, when the clouds thickened, or a wind blew, or a mist descended, or night fell, we always felt one layer naked, chiding our naïve selves for leaving packing our bathing suits and leaving our ski jackets at home.

The midday winter sun, making its first appearance since we’d arrived, worked wonders. For an hour or two we could unclench our shoulders and thaw our tense jaws. But, by the time we reached Asni, plotting clouds had recaptured the sky, and we were forced to put on more damp layers, with the knowledge that things would only get colder as we went up to 7000 feet, and evening settled, and the weather worsened, as it appeared intent on doing.

We had tea at a grungy café in grungy Asni, surveying our new surroundings and asking Kauotar to detail our plan. We were to take another cab to Imlil, a trekking base town further up the valley where the paved road ends. There we would meet Chris, another Peace Corps volunteer, who was staying with the Frenchies and waiting for us, then either hike or take a camion over the pass and down to Ounsghart, where we’d uncork our bottles and celebrate Christmas Eve in a purely secular manner.

What to do with the big black bag of goodies? Kauotar arranged to leave it with her friend, the cafe proprietor, Mohammed, who would find a local Santa to deliver it to her door in time by Christmas morning. I was dubious, but Kate assured me it would get there, although she did pop into a hanut to buy a little lock for the bag, just to keep curious eyes out.

As we taxied again up to Imlil, the weather turned downright raw, worse than anything in Fez or Marrakesh. The afternoon drizzle morphed into fat snowflakes. Our breath came out in thick, milky white plumes. Our walk through town wound us uphill, over a creekbed strewn with wet, cold, grey boulders, past a mass of gawking children, then to a schoolhouse door, were Kate knocked, and mercifully, one of her Frenchy friends in a Djallaba let us in.

The Frenchies were lounging about cross-legged blowing cigarette smoke out of the corners of their mouths. They had a computer, speakers and all, playing funk music. Their décor included a poster of James Brown, lots of pictures of them and their jazzy Frenchy friends traveling around the world. They even had a dartboard. They were blasé about our arrival, greeting us limply, then returning to planning their Christmas Eve dinner.

The one Frenchie who was sweet on Kauotar was nice enough to make us coffee, a welcome break from tea, which we enjoyed along with the effects of the small smoldering hearth fire and the electric heater, which was being hogged by a cluster of kittens. Darcy warmed up with a pair of kitties while Kate found out that Chris had already left for Ounska without us. No one was sure how long it took to hike to Ounska, estimates ranged from three to five hours. We had only three hours of daylight left, and the weather outside was increasingly frightful. No one was sure if the camion had passed through town yet, when or even if it could be expected to arrive.
We left the Frenchies and their heater, without much fanfare, if only to feel like we were moving in some direction. Some villagers told us that the camion wasn’t coming that day. Setting out on a hike this late seemed foolish. It was sad to abandon the plan of going to Ounska, especially when there was no way to tell Chris we couldn’t make it…he would sit there waiting for us, and waiting, all alone on Christmas Eve, perhaps worrying that we were buried in a snowdrift. We could go back to Kate’s village, but that seemed like a letdown.

Kate spotted a friend, a young, Berber trekking guide dressed enviably in Patagonia trekking pants, a North Face parka, a hat and gloves, all of which he had swapped from European clients. He was very friendly, a big fan of Kaoutar’s, and he suggested tea at a concrete café. There was no heat of course, but at least we’d have a roof over our head as we waited for the camion, which he seemed to think would show up anytime. It was a quintessential Moroccan moment, combining the elements of tea (our third round of hot beverages in as many hours), shivering against the cold, language potpourri (our conversation was a goulash of French, Tashalheet, English, even a little Spanish), killing time (a group of five young men sat with their backs pressed against the back wall of the café watching some American B-version of “Cocoon”), and uncertainty about where we were going and when (and if) we’d get there.

I got up to go look at a shop across the street just to get my blood moving. Just then, a blue truck with rainbow painted cargo hold came rattling up the road and stopped a few yards up from the café. Le camion! Christmas was saved again.

Like the overcrowded taxis, the mountain camion ride was on the list of things Kate wanted us to “experience”, and this time, we got the uncensored version, if not the director's cut. The other 5 or six riders were kind enough to let us soft Americans take the seats. Of course, much to Darcy’s dismay, not only did the camion lack seat belts, but our “seats” were three of the 40-odd propane tanks (Berber cooking fuel) that made up the bulk of the camion’s cargo. Our companions leaned against the back gate, smiling and assuring Darcy that all was well as we rollicked from one switchback to the next amidst the clanking of metal barrels. A blue tarp had been strapped over the top of us to keep the elements out, so we couldn’t see much. This was probably a blessing, since what I could see from the narrow triangle out the back was blowing snow and whitening mountainside, both at distressing angles.

About halfway through the 45 minute, 11 Km ride, we stopped to unload and load some goods at a hanut (store) at the edge of a dizzying cliff, with no potential customers to be seen anywhere. I got out to take pictures. After getting my first good look at the road we were on, covered now with six inches of fresh snow, barely wider than our vehicle, and flanked by a cliff that ended somewhere underneath a mat of clouds below, I reluctantly got myself back in the truck.

We started bouncing along again, and I decided to stand and look out back with the other boys, my last vision on earth was not going to be a blue tarp. Two Berbers were running after our tire tracks with shovels, in case we got stuck. We lurched and the bald tires spun, just one unfortunate spinout or lurch away from a metallic, crushing death. I told Darcy she was lucky she couldn’t see what I saw, which was not a good way to ease her worries. After half a mile of this madness it was my voice insisting with very unmasculine high-pitched whine: “Kate, let’s walk from here.” After no response, even more shrill, “Tell them we want to get out and walk.”
She teased me later, saying I was crying (I wasn’t crying, yet), but she herself was pretty quick to pass my request on to the driver, and we all were happy to see that truck go around the next treacherous bend without us in it. We had originally intended to walk anyway. The way to Ounsghart was all downhill from there, and the weather was frigid, but clear, allowing a breathtaking view of the peaks above and the valley far below. No sense risking a caged demise, tenderized to death by propane canisters, when we could enjoy such an invigorating stroll. We jogged through the snow to beat the cold and the oncoming dusk, and arrived at the next hanut as our camion was still unloading bundles of vegetables and sacks of flour.

We found our packs, and followed some boys on donkeys down the footpath into the village in the fading light. We entered a doorway with a sign and ducked through a hallway to emerge on a patio, where the jite (inn) owner, Chris’ host brother, Lashin, fetched us some plastic patio chairs and some mint tea, our fifth round of the day. From a dark room to the left of the patio, Chris emerged in his custom-made pinstriped Djallaba and informed us that he was in the midst of a village meeting re: plans for the new loom and hammam (bath house) that were in the works thanks to his Peace Corps efforts.

We stayed outside, the cold quickly seizing our bones again after our briefly reviving cross country run. We were glad to see Lashin bring out bowls filled with steaming broth, but when he was out of earshot, Kate said, unenthusiastically, “Looks like Cream-of-Blank soup” a flavorless favorite from her village. It turned out to be the even blander, starchier Ounsghart version, Berber Flour Soup, (quick recipe: mix flour, water, salt…heat, enjoy!) which tasted and felt like warm glue going down. I’ll eat just about anything, yet, despite its much-needed warmth, and my hunger, I couldn’t make a dent. We were all very happy when the meeting adjourned and Chris led us into his room to warm up and get the party started.

In the wee, wee hours of Christmas morning, I found myself staring into the pitch dark of Chris’ tiny room, feeling wide-awake and slightly nauseous from some combination of the tea, the tagine, the whiskey, the wine, or perhaps the carbon monoxide which had set off Chris’ detector twice through the night (causing Chris to get up and crack a window).

Darcy and I were on a pile of mats on the floor, under mountains of blankets. Lashin's “jite”, was a mountain bed and breakfast of sorts that makes a cheap hostel look like a grand hotel. His establishment provides weary trekkers (few to be found that time of year) with tea, food, blankets, and one of a dozen mats on the floor of an otherwise empty room. At bedtime, the jite room was just too cold, so Darcy and I decided to sleep on the floor under a pile of blankets and on top of a pile of mats in Chris’ rented room, with Kate and Chris on the wallside couch/beds above us at right angles to one another. A cozy little place to sleep on a cold night...or lay awake staring into the dark.

I had a headlamp, but I’d wake everyone up if I turned it on to read. The party had been fun. We had unpacked our goods from the Marjane, like treasures from exotic lands considering the distance we had come. Kate made a fine dip for the artichokes, and we ate every last bit of our cheese and crackers. Chris sent a Berber kid out to buy a freshly killed chicken, and he and Kate worked together to make a mean Tagine. Lashin showed up, and Muslim or not, drank more than his share of whiskey. He only spoke Tashalheet, but we all got along well enough. He brought in a tiny boombox with Berber music and we had some lessons in Berber dancing (it involves a lot of shoulder shrugging for boys) and Berber clapping, which is maddeningly off Western rhythm.

We finished our booze, ate our Tagine, smoked Lashin’s cigarettes, had tea #6, probably what was keeping me up now, and went to bed. What a day! And it was still going, four hours until a hint of light crept through Chris’ wooden shutters and I decided I was better off outside.

It was fantastic out there. A White Christmas like none I’d ever seen. An inch of powdery snow had fallen on the patio overnight, and it blanketed the sharp stupendous peaks that towered in every direction, and the rooftops of the ancient-looking Berber village, and the terraced fields across the river below. The sky had cleared, except for a mantle of clouds ringing the peaks to my left, up the valley and into Toubkal Park proper. To the right, downriver, loomed “The Mountain That Speaks To You”, stark, lonely, and dramatic.

I bundled up, thought about writing in my journal, but eventually just sat, like a Berber man, letting the mountain speak to me. Unfortunately, my GI Tract was also speaking to me, and the pure crisp air and the stunning vistas couldn't quite calm my churning stomach.

Two days before I had stopped in La Mamounia, the swankest hotel in Marrakesh, to use their facilities, but I was already in the swankest hotel in Ounsghart. The problem was, whenever I approached the “bathroom” (a filthy porcelain ground sink with a hole, two footrests for squatting, and a faucet with a bucket for flushing) the odor heightened my nausea, and I lost my nerve.

Finally, I took a deep breath and confronted the problem, and the morning brightened after that. Chris came out and joined me just as the sun came up over the peaks to our left, warming our thankful faces. From the patio I watched the village come to life, mostly in the form of Berber boys, 6 to 10 year olds, shoveling off the rooftops with wood shovels that looked like picket signs, before the snowmelt leaked through the earthen roofs. I watched, a little guiltily, as Lashin’s young sons shoveled our patio. When his daughters, 6 and 8 maybe, got involved, pointlessly sweeping up the corners with a little hand brooms, I really felt I should help, but Lashin was sitting there watching himself. His culture dictated that kids worked while adults watched, and besides, it was a holiday for me. It isn’t so terrible, really. Kids have boundless energy, which they usually use to dart around aimlessly, shrieking and irritating us all. Why not harness the renewable energy and wear them out with some shoveling?

Kate and Darcy emerged last, and shortly after they had cleared the sleep from their eyes, they went inside with Lashin’s wife and my headlamp, Darcy to give a gynecological exam, Kate to translate. The night before, we had asked Lashin how many kids he had. He said 6, maybe. He had five, and his wife was 8 months pregnant, but she had been sick lately…unable to eat, weak, rashes. They had been down to Asni once to see the doctor, but it hadn’t done much good, and now it was too far, 25 Km by camion, donkey, or foot, and too late to seek anymore medical help. With the whiskey it came out that Darcy was a medical student, and Lashin, to my surprise, asked if she could take a look at his wife. She said sure, and now, with her looking a little bit queasy herself, he was holding her to it.

Chris and I waited for the girls for at least an hour, it was hard to say how long without a watch. We garred on the patio with Lashin, and got into a few snowball skirmishes with his kids and some more distant targets in the village. We took in the view from every angle and Chris pointed out routes he wanted to telemark ski once he got all his equipment. He seemed well-suited for this remote alpine existence, he was a mountain kid himself, from Wyoming.

The girls finally came out of the examination room, trying to look like they gave backcountry gyn exams everyday, and we packed up and struck out on the path down to Tanasghart.

Chris and Ounsghart disappeared after a few bends in the trail, and we shut up and enjoyed the scenery . We followed a pleasant downhill grade cut into the steep slope of the North side of the valley, a few hundred feet above the river. We passed the Mountain That Speaks To You, we passed goats and sheep and their lone herders. The landscape rivaled any of the great parks of the US West, with the fascinating addition of the Berbers and their villages, which all seemed to come from a different planet than the one we thought we lived on. The villages were closely packed clusters of adobe-like rectangular dwellings wedged into, and barely discernable from, the hillsides. The communities were reminiscent of the remnants of pueblos in the American Southwest, but these were living breathing communities, crops and livestock in the terraced fields, smoke coming from the chimneys, laundry drying in the sun, which, for its usual allotment of 2 or 3 hours a day, was dethawing us.

We saw no other Western trekkers on the route, just Berbers going from one town to the next for business or pleasure. We passed countless children, most of whom tried to score a flip of candy or money with the call of “Bonjour. Bon-bon? Dirhams?” Apparently the bleeding heart French trekkers had turned these kids into beggars. We had no Dirhams and no bon-bons, and these cries, heart-wrenching at first, got a little bit irritating, especially when small flocks of kids catcalled us and followed us along the trail.

Also annoying was their reluctance to have their photos taken, due to some variation of Koranic law equating image with soul. I was trigger happy, and I thought the law rather asinine, so I took to covert methods: hiding behind rocks, nonchalantly shooting from the hip, sniping from afar on full zoom, or pretending to have Kate and/or Darcy pose for a picture, when I was really after the Berber family on the roof behind them, or the elderly Berber woman hunched underneath a load of brush twice her size, or the goatherder posing in cape and cane on a rocky outcrop. When I was caught trying to steal souls, however, nothing was more humiliating and infuriating than being scolded by finger-wagging children, “No, no, no, no, no!” My best close up was of one girl, no more than 3, left alone by the trailside, too young to chide me. Sadly, I chopped her head off. (In the picture.)

In between villages, the valley landscape grew more forgiving, the walls less steep and barren, morphing from snow-capped white to volcanic black, through a range of sandy earth tones, to the Sedona-like red rock that marked Kate’s neighborhood. Our legs had grown tired after 4 plus hours, but the hike never ceased to fascinate and keep us moving around the next bend. One village short of Kate’s, people began to recognize her and point: “She’s from Tanasghart.” Finally, we trudged into Kate’s village, looking forward to a change from sweaty dirty clothes to dry dirty clothes, and to swap blistering boots for some slippers.

Kaoutar lived on the far side of the douar, and it soon became apparent that we were farther from home than we thought. Dozens of human obstacles stood in our way on every doorstep right and left of us, all of them jobless, all of them hospitable, all of them wanting to make some tea for Kaoutar and her friends and shoot the breeze awhile. So this was what celebrities must feel like on a Sunday morning when they just wanted to go out and pick up the paper and half a dozen bagels. We didn’t want to offend Kaoutar’s people, but damn were we tired. If we weren’t a little rude, it could take us another 4 hours just to walk the final 300 yards across town. We kept smiling, waving, but moving forward, trusting our momentum would pull Kate along, but we lost focus for a second and lost her to a cluster of post-teen girls.

After a few minutes, Darcy literally grabbed Kate’s hand and pulled her down the road. Kate finally pointed out her house, and our feet were crying tears of joy and pain as we rounded the corner to the entrance to her apartment out back, where we were ambushed by a cluster of clucking ladies, Kate’s landfamily, and we were swept in for tea on tiny chairs in the cement-floored kitchen, smiling and watching Kate recount our long day’s journey, 10 meters from finished, as her blankets, beds, couches, and bag of Christmas presents lay waiting.

But a little tea and bread and welcoming did our spirits well, and Christmas was all the merrier once we finally got to change, and put our tired feet up under lots of blankets and watch Kaoutar, the poor Berber girl, open present after present from far off well-wishers, and seem genuinely delighted by them all.