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THE GEOGRAPHER: Greenland means something quite special in my life. I’ve already written about the place and the literature and its significance to me but I must include just a few more thoughts before I move on. With only a month’s hindsight, the glorious scenery of Greenland and my ‘walking accomplishments’ are still present and accumulating the sheen reserved for Big Special Trips. If I were in a cartoon the two thinking-bubbles… Read More
“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain “Join the army, travel the world, meet interesting people and kill them.” —anti-war slogan from Vietnam war era. Those quotes pretty much describe my state of mind today which might best be labeled as confused and melancholy—even though in just one week I’m off for… Read More
It’s four weeks and three days until granddaughter Teresa and I leave Albuquerque for Copenhagen and, three days later, Narsarsuaq, Greenland. There are many painfully mundane (paying) and some moderately-thrilling (trips to REI) tasks to complete—one of which is to record it all for posterity…and this blog. You know from the last post how this idea of going to Greenland came into being. I’m afraid I may not have been completely accurate;… Read More
PART 1: Planted in the Brain A landscape opened up before me. I felt as if I were standing on the top of a mountain, gazing out over a plain, covered by long, meandering rivers. On the horizon, more mountains rose up, between them there were valleys and one of the valleys was covered by an enormous white glacier. Everything gleamed and glittered. It was as if I had been transported to… Read More
So soon. The routine. Did that other thing really happen? Did I really do that? Go around the world. Was it a long time ago? No? A few days ago you say…I’m already forgetting. I did. Go around the world. It was—in today’s vernacular—awesome. Actually it was just plain awesome. But when I started to catch up on diary entries for those days and weeks away they had already slipped into past tense,… Read More