“What I enjoy most about writing is the ability to take a magnificent person or place, hold it up to the brightest possible light, and share that light with others.
That’s the challenge, and that’s what keeps me striving to ever hone my words to a fine obsidian edge.” – Bart Jackson
Snippet from my upcoming book – FELLOW TRAVELER
The INDABA
The assignment was to report on just how, and how well, the southern nations in Africa were handling the challenges of literacy in these swiftly changing times at the end of the 20th century. Accompanied and guided by my librarian wife Lorraine, I was to glean fodder for my articles in Harare, Zimbabwe, holding an international INDABA – a Bantu word for a convening of peoples to address a serious issue. Before or since, I have seldom seen a gathering of so many truly wise and creative people so intent on uplifting their fellows. Here, in intense yet joyful parley, came Africa’s intellectual, educational, and publishing elite. The spread of new digital tools and their varied benefits seeped, quite naturally, into every conversation. Yet everyone, from Philip, the Tanzanian multi-tribal-language publisher to Henri, the education minister of Botswana, knew that technology alone, as always, was not the answer.
The real and daunting challenge lay deep in Africa’s most cherished roots. Most Africans found their authority, lore, and knowledge in their rich oral tradition. It is this wildly inventive spoken tradition that makes the black community the second largest creator of new English words. The unfortunate side of this coin is that the written word placed a poor second as source of learning. The call these gentlemen and ladies faced was to have their peoples accept the added value of books, while fully maintaining their powerful oral tradition. The energy was exhilarating, the solutions were many, and much was accomplished. Today, visitors to southern Africa’s nations find it all too easy to focus on the various ebbs and flows of political strife. But as I revisit these lands 25 years later, I can but shake my head with admiration at the gift these cultural leaders have launched and sustained in their homelands.
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Making It in the Big City
Disembarking onto the tarmac of St. Petersburg’s airport, the nail-driving February wind gave understanding as to why Vodka is a national pastime in Russia. After gathering our baggage and zipping through a surprisingly efficient customs process, we faced the tough but typical challenge of making our way into to some tiny, unpronounceable hostel on some unpronounceable alley, somewhere in the City of Peter the Great. (The host of Lorraine’s small international sub-committee meeting had selected it, supplying us only the name and address.)
Armed with our hastily memorized 100-Russian-word cheatsheets, (an old traveling habit) we made our way through the first two busses. But soon after boarding the third, we were entirely lost, and definitely heading somewhere.
Frantically canvassing our fellow passengers for directions, our amusing version of Russian proved beyond comprehension.
Then, from a seat in back an utterly beautiful, young, dark-haired lass rose and in stately, flawless English asked, “May I be of assistance?” Dallia was also making her first foray into St. Petersburg, and had changed onto our bus after a 26-hour bus ride from her remote village in Siberia. She was venturing to make her way in the big city as a dancer. No, not as the proverbial Russian ballerina, but as, hopefully, a ballroom dancing professional. Dallia had mastered English in her spare time from a teacher and the school’s internet program. She saved us with a complete set of instructions for finding our lodging. During our stay, we watched Dallia and her new partner dazzle us at their studio. The couple moved swiftly up the contest competition ladder. She was as graceful as she was kind. Over dinners, she awed us with the contrast between her small village and this massive metropolis. We had no doubt that this young lady was well on her way to carving out a successful artistic career. Our best wishes to all those enterprising souls who take the risk and shoot for the stars.
Angel – In the Nick ‘O Time
The southwest edge of New Zealand’s South Island sees (and feels) more rain annually that London, Edinburgh, and Tokyo combined. Typically 300 some inches. Down that way, on a soggy night amidst a nameless forest, Lorraine and I disembarked our intrepid Fiat and dashed for the door of the unmarked, Quonset-style “Batch” (Kiwi term for an exquisitely primitive bachelor crib).
Inside, we found our damp, dripping selves alone, staring confusedly at a wall-size, wood burning stove with a dozen levers and chains, each supposedly with some necessary function. Twenty minutes later, I had scrounged up and loaded nearly dry firewood into its yawning maw, studied all the metallic configurations, lit a match, and prayed. Gradually, the room warmed – and filled with gently wafting clouds of smoke. Lorraine, true to her nature, grew slightly alarmed. “What have you done now?”
Then, just as it was getting difficult to see… came a knock at the door. Drenched, slightly puzzled, but bearing a broad smile, our caller bid us good evening. He was lost in this forest, and seeking directions to some other dwelling located on a real road. By sheerest chance, and no little earlier study, I was able to spread out maps and supply him with a hopeful answer.
“By the way,” I queried, amid the ever-thickening fumes, “do you know anything about this kind of stove?”
“Oh yes,” he nodded abruptly, as he reached over and gave a hefty yank on some strange metal rod. “You just need to pull that one. Nice meeting you.” And he was gone, shutting our door behind him.
Within moments the air cleared and my bride and I cozied down before the fire’s blessed heat. I had never learned his name. Never had enough time to thank him for his salvation. But that night I truly thanked the heavens for sending us our timely ministering angel. And when at last I come to my true reward, at least I’ll know how to tend the furnace.
***
Investing Liquid Assets
I met him at age 12 on my first trip to Brussels. In fact, it is considered unthinkable to visit the “Capital City of Europe” without making pilgrimage to this youngster. Just stroll around the corner from Brussels’ central Grand Market with all its self-consciously ornate architecture, and there he greets you: Manneken Pis. With gleeful smile, naked as God and the sculptor made him, this little bronze boy, not quite 22 inches tall, stands poised, urinating into the marble fountain below. With adorable innocence, this refreshing statue breaks more taboos than a Victorian art critic could invent, and puts more smiles on faces (arguably) than all Belgium’s famed chocolate shoppes.
The first M. P. statue was erected in 1452, just after the Ottoman Turks assault was repulsed. And with basically two replacements, our lad exists today – still smiling. Somehow, Manneken Pis peals back the outward seeming stodginess of Belgium character, and, giving us a sly wink, reminds us that these mercantile folks do not take themselves too seriously. Mannekin has been swathed in literally thousands of costumes transforming him from Santa to Dracula. On at least three occasions, our lad has bountifully fed the crowds mugs of Belgium’s famous brews, when the fountain water was replaced with beer.
But for me, the most enjoyable part of Mannekin Pis comes from his historical heroism. Many tales surround the statue, but the most common (recently retold me by historical trivia master Mike Lupovici) comes out of the Ottoman siege of Constantinople and other European capitols in the 15th century. Story has it, that seeing the attacking Turks place gunpowder charges against the city walls, our brave boy raced to the parapet and, cleverly whipping out the gift God gives all men, was able to water down the fuses of the explosive charges and foil the assault. May we all be so resourceful in times of challenge.
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Practical Coupling
So a blind man goes into the veterinarian’s office, and after they chat, invites her to go for a bike ride on her next free afternoon…
When my wife and I first began cycling together, we soon discovered the Tandem – bicycle built for two – as the only way we could complete a trip within sight of each other. Having already mastered the art of doubles whitewater paddling, balancing and coordinating on a two-person bike proved no great problem. I, being heavier of the pair, took the “Captain’s” position in front. And my bride Lorraine, pumped away in the “Stoker’s” position, right behind. When “we” wanted to turn right or shift to a lower gear, she merely slapped me on the helmet and explained the necessity of her requirement. Simple.
Before long we found our way into a series of tandem rallies all along the east coast, pedaling gleefully with a hundred or so other couples who had learned the delicate art of tandem communication and compromise. We met all kinds, such as always-laughing Amy (almost five feet tall) and her husband Mark, a 6’10” former pro basketball player. (They had to have a custom frame built to accommodate.) We also biked many miles of road alongside Josh, the blind man first mentioned above, and his veterinarian wife Linda. Their first date, arranged when Josh came in to pick up his injured seeing eye dog, had blossomed into true romance and they had logged thousands of miles as a married couple. (And yes, Josh did take the Stoker’s seat.) Allow me to share one of their conversations spoken as we broke for lunch.
Josh: Linda, I think I’ve dropped my sweat band.
Linda: It’s on the ground, behind you,
Josh: (turning around extending his foot to search for it) It is close?
Linda: To your right and about a foot away… No, too far…more to the right…a few more inches.
Josh: (bending down and snatching it.) Thanks, got it.
Linda: OK, let’s eat.
This marriage will last a lifetime.
When I later asked Josh what ever possessed him to buy a tandem bicycle. He broke into a smile and responded. “I always thought it would be a great way to meet girls.”
A Dark December Night
“It was right here, just a few hundred yards upstream they cut ‘em,” Erin made a circle with his hands. “Fourteen inches wide at the bottom and ten inches at the top – and each sixty foot high.” He explained how the six pole pines cut from his ancestral property had been hewn to serve as the three, two-step masts for the USS Constitution. Through a slightly skewed jaw, Erin mouthed a vivid description of the 1797 lumbering of “Old Ironsides’ ” timbers as if it were last week.
My dear friend and paddling partner John Parkinson had spied the lone light from Erin’s cabin when we pulled up our canoe and set up a shoreside camp for the night. John was slated to soon abandon me for the U.S. Army and in celebration of his new career, we had planned a four-day upper Delaware River trip of 120 miles down to the Water Gap. The fact that it was a mere three weeks before the Winter solstice, with great chill and damned little daylight does not come into consideration when you are 22 and immortal. Seeking warmth, we knocked on Erin’s door and this lifetime bachelor enthusiastically welcomed us. He ushered us into the two-room, cozy home and crammed more logs into the a wood burning stove that looked like he bought it from Ben Franklin. For some hours we huddled around that stove, listening spellbound to this riverside sage, as he proffered a good half-century more adventures than we had. As the stars grew brighter, John and I grudgingly left Erin’s expansive company and warm hospitality. We rose from our tent the morrow morn if not wiser men, at the very least, better steeped in life’s lore.
Snuff & Iron
Archeologist Ashton Pieri beamed with inherited pride as he walked us along the massive, exquisitely fitted stone walls that 500 years ago embraced Africa’s most technologically advanced empire. About the era when my European forebears were blighting two continents with bloody crusades, Ashton’s ancestors, the Shona people began carving out a highly civilized, organized culture amidst the jungled interiors of the Dark Continent. Patting a huge, oddly curved structure, he explained, “This was the Great Zimbabwe – the capitol of the empire. From here the Shona advanced north, conquering and diplomatically uniting neighboring peoples into a sprawling trade network.” Despite expanding to more than double the size of the Zimbabwe nation today, news and knowledge of the Shona achievements remained markedly scarce.
Then by the 15th century, the maritime Portuguese stumbled across pieces of Shona iron and forged metals that far exceeded anything manufactured in Europe at the time. Rapidly, European sailors urged African coastal traders to establish supply routes with this unknown empire which held these near-mythical Hephaestian secrets. Ashton spun marvelous true (?) tales of how Portuguese snuff was the sole currency the Shona deemed worthy to swap for its metals. Lorraine and my interest were so jaw-droppingly evident that Ashton arranged for us to spend a night within the walls of in the Great Zimbabwe. This architecture alone felt hauntingly mystical. Each of the small, sculpted stones comprising this enormous city’s encirclement was etched with a number. (Souvenir hunters who try to smuggle stones out of the country will be stopped at the airport and the stolen stone’s number allows it to be fit right back into place.) Together they formed a uniquely meandering fortification. There was not a straight line or right angle to be found in anywhere in the bulwark. Rather the walls seemed to flow like an artfully designed stream whimsically meandering the countryside. My father always joked that while the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, the prettiest distance was a curve. For me, when applied to something as practical as a city wall, such a formation inspires this visitor with a wonder and yearning to know a lot more about Ashton’s ancestors.
The Missionary
Out at the Missouri State Fair, I sat in awe watching a man defy gravity by racing a motorcycle in a 20-foot sphere of steel bars, making swift orbits around his smiling wife inside. I beheld a blacksmith wreathe iron bars into delicate art forms. I stood below huge Missouri mules and Clydesdales; Watched pigs race and autos race…
But the most impressive individual was parked just outside the entrance. Every evening of the 10-day fair, this elderly gentleman sat in his wheelchair, and from a satchel held out to the swarms of passersby a small sheet of paper. “Here,” he directed me. “Read this once through, then read it again. It will change your life.” A quick scan showed it to be some kind of Christian religious tract, with quotes carefully arranged from the New Testament. Each day, Stan would get some friend to drive him to the fairgrounds, where they would heft his wheelchair out of the car, and Stan would work his way over the gravel to this spot. His sole mission was the hope of making someone else find the happiness he had found. Stan asked for no funds, and accepted none. He represented no institutional church, nor pleaded for any conversion. But the earnest, warm look in his eyes, told of this gentleman’s reward.
As we talked and I gratefully accepted his gift, Stan turned to me and said, Here, take another and give it to a friend.”
Thank you, Sir. I will, I replied.
The Emigrant
“How on earth did you ever find this place?” he asked in surprisingly perfect English. Should you ever find yourself wandering along the Spercheios River in search of Phthia – elusive birthplace of the Iliad’s towering hero, Achilles – you will doubtless loose yourself amongst scores of central Greece’s most hidden and certainly most charming villages. Two parallel dirt ruts had led us to this particular unmapped cluster of whitewashed structures. ‘Twas all rurally Hellenic, men shouldering home-hewn adzes, resigned women tugging along resigned, heavily-laden donkeys. Despite the millennia timeshift, Homer would have felt at home.
My wife Lorraine, I, and Chris, our jovial German-psychiatrist companion, emerged from “Phidippides,” our rented Fiat, and headed for the tiny Taberna where men sat liberally pouring ouzo into each others glasses. In the center of all attention stood Yaros. Tall, broad shouldered, a wad of Stygian black curls arching over a broad confident smile, this man radiated a respect beyond his years. The fact that he queried us in our own native tongue was more intriguing. After hosting us a second round of drinks, Yaros unfolded his story. About eight years prior, realizing that life held more than mountain-niche villages and back-breaking agriculture, this adventurous youth spread his wings. By the grace of Hermes, Yaros had ended up in Chicago, where wit and considerable savvy had earned him a job as a waiter in the historic Drake Hotel. Serving elegant five-star meals to folks of enviable means seemed to suit his Greek temperament. Soon Yaros was raking in earnings nearly four times the average U.S. salary. He saved every penny. Then, after seven years, his fortune made, Yaros yearned to return to his birthplace and had entered the village like a conquering hero.
At this time, I was penning a book about Achilles, another traveling adventurer, whom Fate had denied the opportunity to enter his hometown in triumph. One must wonder how long can the hero bask in his hometown glory. How long before Yaros, or (given a different fate) Achilles would yield again to the call of further exploits?
Holding It Together
Within minutes after Lorraine and I arrived at the race-start on the banks of Poland’s Dunajec River, the failings of the crumbling Soviet technology became plainly evident to us.
Back then, before whitewater canoes and kayaks came factory molded out of rubbery Tupperware, we laid up far less durable boats using layered sheets of fiberglass and Kevlar. Yes, these garage-crafted craft imbued the river runner with a powerful pride. But this increased fragility demanded increased agility to weave one’s way ‘twixt the boat-crunching rocks. And sooner or later every boat took hits, allowing leaks to seep in.
Watching competitors from Poland, Ukraine, then-Czechoslovakia, and mother Russia, make ready their whitewater race boats, we beheld the most amazing, nearly-effective methods of boat repair. Home made staples, gobs of gooey glue, wadded cloth ties – every substance had been employed to bind up the leaky craft. It was then, smiling with no little smuggness, that Lorraine and I pulled out our two rolls of gray Duct Tape. It was like displaying a ball point pen to the signers of the Constitution. Everyone clustered around, craving a piece. Within minutes it was all “loaned” out with promises to send along more when we returned home. Although invented in America in the mid 1940s, it took decades for duct tape to come into consumer retail markets. Among western paddlers, legend held that it could fix up anything from a shattered boat to a broken marriage. Within the next few years, duct tape made its way throughout all central Europe. But by then, the Soviet empire had fallen apart. Do you suppose that if the USSR had had ample duct tape…? Nah, probably not.
We invite you to look up the history of Duct Tape.
***
The Bard
It was a small, rosewood mandolin, held tightly against the softly frayed lapels of his gray jacket, as the taberna owner guided the silent man gently by the elbow to his café table. A few steps off Athens’ central Syntagma Square, this cozy eatery had become a favorite haunt during our expeditions seeking mythical traces of the Iliad’s wrathful Achilles. The lamb was good and the retsina, well, plentiful. But what kept drawing us back was this elegant patron and his constant companion he always carried.
With no preparation or announcement, the mandolin launched into a heavy, rhythmic accompaniment, and its owner into an undulating bass melody. The captivating ballad had begun. My ancient Greek was rusty, my modern Greek vocabulary small, but nouns like Achilleus, Patroclus, and Hector left no doubt as to the thread of our bard’s tale. Local Athenian regulars at their tables swayed in time, rocking their chairs against the whitewashed walls – some mouthing remembered phrases. Lorraine and I felt we had stumbled 1200 years back into a time when wandering Greek poets would stroke their lyres, and fire warrior’s imaginations with tales of their ancestors who had battled and fallen before the walls of Troy. After an exhaustive recitation that ended far too soon, the taberna owner came over and by hand began feeding our entertainer. It was only then that I realized that, like the magnificent Homer, our bard was blind.
A Follower of The Way
My heart wept for this young monk. The northern Thailand metropolis of Chiang Mai literally reeks of Buddhist devotion. The countless gilded spires of her 15th century wats (temples), and their incense rising heavenward, instill on even the most casual traveler a sense that here is a holy city. At the end of our first week exploring the area, Lorraine and I found ourselves seated on the steps of the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep with a young robed monk in his late twenties who labored and prayed at this wat. We had brought him an offering of toiletries and underwear for which he thanked us profusely, and, in careful English, he began to unfold his personal story.
As he came to the end, this beautiful boy, in the prime of his life cast his eyes down and shared with us, “I am afraid I will never be a good Buddhist….I have studied and prayed for the last seven years, and I still have desires.” His words had landed on a man who fervently sees emotions as a divinely-gifted source of joy and passionate desires as a vital wellspring of personal power. I realize that several segments of Buddha’s followers see dispelling of desires as a necessary step toward enlightenment, but my witnessing the sadness in this young voice – the sincere devotion coupled with a frustrated sense of failure…Perhaps I was like the blind man holding only the tail of an enormous glorious elephant. Yet I confess, his words still sting my soul.
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Running Rivers Blind
“To New Zealand – The most Can-Do nation in the world,” we toasted.
Lorraine and I clinked glasses with Ted and Johnson, two new-found fellow whitewater paddlers whose exploratory exploits put all my treks to shame. They had just come off three weeks running nameless steep creeks that shed waters from the mountainous spine of NZ’s South Island. Their modus operandi was to spot blue lines denoting streams on a map, bushwack themselves, gear and kayaks to some accessible point, put in, and run it blind. Fruit, first aid kit, sleeping bag, bivvy sack – and, of course, duct tape – comprised majority of their equipment.
These gentlemen’s risk tolerance would make bitcoin investors look like frightened rabbits. When a tight tongue of water hurls your boat around a corner in front of a chest-high tree fallen across the creek, you simply Eskimo roll – drift under it – and hopefully roll back up downstream. When you encounter a “strainer” a fallen tree that puts a curtain of branches in your path, you discover new and original methods of prayer….
What adventures inspired these travelers’ toast “The Most Can-Do Nation? How did Ted & Johnson find, get to, and survive these lost rivers?
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A Mediterranean Diet
Phalanxes of Egyptian bathing beauties, swathed from head to toe in flowing robes of black cotton, tentatively brave the azure waves rhythmically swarming o’er the fine sands of Alexandria’s public beach. Clasping hands for support, these Islam lasses shriek with delight along this historic shore where the ancient Nile pours its waters into the Mediterranean Sea. From our café table overlooking this frivolity, Lorraine and I sip viscous-thick coffees, as a young boy sporting a wad of ink-black curls hefts an intriguingly heavy bucket onto our table. Like the city’s namesake, this earnest lad, with no more clothing than Kipling’s Gunga Din, announces that he too is named Alexander…. And then, with a slight bow, he gets down to business.
Fresh from the waters we now gaze upon, Alexander has netted a bucket of sea urchins. These intimidating nuggets bristling with poisonous spines, he assures us, embody an ambrosia fit for the deities of the Nile and Olympus, and honored American guests, like ourselves. Ever suckers for a sales pitch, we shell out a batch of piastres, and watch as Alexander deftly de-shells the fist-size globular echinoderms. With no little pride he sets before us dainty umber ovals vaguely resembling miniature human brains….
Did we dare partake? Were they as absolutely divine as our young host boasted?
When Empire Fades
His sheep nibbled around the feet of a giant, startlingly-fanged lion, while ranks of tall-plumed, sword-waving soldiers looked on. Hattusha, grand capital of Hittites Empire, once ruling most of Anatolian Turkey, now, two and a half millennia later, seemed to boast a single human inhabitant: Baris, absolute ruler of nearly two dozen wooly minions. Lorraine and I had arrived in full archeological fervor to walk the high stone walls, gates, and temples of this Ozyimandesque ruin. But our true cultural education came when Baris invited us into his home to meet his wives and children. What a rich blending of modern perks, devoutly stirred into layers of old and treasured traditions….
So, how does today’s tech take its place among those who value the past?)
The World Fixer
It seemed a fairly standard upscale Cairo apartment, except that all upholstered furniture lay carefully blanketed with newspapers to catch droppings from the wounded fish eagle who screamed just overhead as we entered. Rose and her exquisitely tolerant husband had found this injured raptor hopping along the Nile and had brought it home to nurse its recovery. While penning an article on Cairo’s nefarious Pet Market, I had invited passionate animal advocate Rose to join Lorraine and me as we toured the stalls ‘neath the broiling Egyptian sun. She was a whirlwind. Grabbing a vendor’s galabeya, she pointed to his cage crammed with tortoises stacked like cordwood and demanded he give them better treatment. A tall, bewildered seller of secretary birds and an albino crocodile came under her wrath as Rose screamingly cited CITES illegal trade laws and threatened to bring this man to justice. Even on our way to her home, Rose lectured our taxi driver – a father of seven – how Allah would better favor those with minimal means who practiced birth control.
Rose was truly an individual fireball, whose sole ambition was to make ours a better world. And if we are lucky, our world will begin to grow a lot more Roses, for our own sakes.
Toppler of Tyranny
Ignore the white hair, tis lean looking hiker strode up the hill from Berchtesgaden with a gait that made it clear: this was not a man you’d want to mess with. As we crested the summit and beheld Adolf Hiltler’s historical Eagle’s Nest getaway, this gentleman tapped my shoulder, introduced himself as James, and then from his wallet pulled out a aged, black-and-white photo of himself in an American uniform, perched atop the German Fuehrer’s beloved monument, tearing down the giant swastika in 1945…
What was James’ story? Did he actually drink wine from Hitler’s bunker?
Timeless Tasks
We crouched on the cobbles of Cairo beneath the towers of tilting, bare wood structures that seemed as fragile and perhaps as old as a Karnak mummy. “Hammet” had enlisted my aid in slicing slender strips from a branch into which he awled holes and fitted into a masterful bird cage. But, he insisted, to help in the precision of this work, we had to share his hookah….
Did Hammet and Bart ever finish a credible bird cage for Cairo’s Pet Market? Did Lorraine ever lead herself and bewildered hubby out of the labyrinth of Cairo’s back streets? Visit Bartsbooks.com to discover more Fellow Travelers
What Man Has Done…
They were called Cyclopean walls. And when you behold these massive, rough-hewn blocks forming the bronze-age Greek citadels of Mycenae and Tiryns, you understand why. Surely, the only creatures to set these mammoth stones into fortress a millennium and a half before Christ must be the one-eyed giant Cyclopes of Odyssey-fame. But sitting on just such a wall at the Tiryns excavation with head archeologist, Klaus Kilian, we were witnessing the fallacy of the old Greeks’ myth. Under Klaus’ supervision, here indeed was a man-and-woman sized job….
“Just take that wall segment down,” Klaus instructed the team. “I want to examine what’s under it.” Understand, Klaus’s crew were no regular human beings. They were grad students. Urged to a slavish frenzy by the carrot of degrees, graduate students have proved themselves more powerful and dedicated to grunt work than any day laborer who ever sweated over pyramids or Roman roads. And Herr Professor Kilian had come to Tiryns with a stalwart student team of mostly German youth.
Perhaps no peoples celebrate Greece’s heroic history so zealously as the Germans. It was German archeologists, after all, who salvaged the entire Pergamon Altar of Zeus (all 117 by 110 feet of it) and brought it stone by stone back to Berlin restoring it to its former glory. Klaus Kilian had dedicated years of his life to the city of “Mighty Walled Tiryns,” as Homer referred to it in the Iliad, which was a thriving metropolis at the time of the Trojan War.
Gathering material for my book about the Greek hero Achilles, Lorraine and I had come to Tiryns to talk with the renown Professor Kilian. And he decided that the most appropriate interview vantage would be atop this ancient wall in the city where Heracles once came to undertake his redemptive labors, while he supervised the current exertions of his crew.
And so the dozen graduate students hefted six-foot crowbars and began loosening, then lowering, and carefully numbering the fitted couch-size limestone chunks, which they would rebuild later. Klaus’ training showed in their skill, even so, this was all muscle work. Their bodies toiled and sweated ‘neath the harsh Greek sun. I kept thinking that under this sun, and under this city’s king, so had the powerful Heracles struggled…..
Did the KIaus Kilian inspire his team to perform the “superhuman” feat of disassembling and resurrecting Tiryns mighty walls? What did the professor discover about this legendary land of Greek heroes? More about this fellow traveler will be explained in further pages.
Gathering All the Animals
Compared to Noah, I couldn’t find a lion in my living room. Quiet, settled, subtly humored, Noah knew exactly which stream banks lay slathered thick with alligators, on which kjopes lions stoically scouted for prey, and precisely how close to wildebeest herds he could set us walking without probably getting trampled. Lorraine, I, and long-time fellow trekker Richard Craig had just come down from traversing Mount Kilimanjaro, and a friend had linked us with Noah as the “most intriguing” driver/guide for a few weeks camping safari in Tanzania’s Serengeti…
From the moment we tossed ourselves and gear into Noah’s “Jarringly Jouncing Jeep,” the three of us realized we had a perfect fit. Noah was the first man we’d met in all Tanzania with camping equipment as worn and aged as our own. Pointing “JJJ” roughly toward Mount Mehru, our guide began expanding our Swahili expletive vocabulary as he fist-swatted the swarming tsetse flies against the dashboard. (Tsetse bites make our American greenhead’s worst efforts feel like a gentle kiss.)
It soon became apparent. We had own definite ideas about this photo safari, and Noah had the right ones. “Yes, of course,” he had wryly noted, “you don’t need a cook, but then the baboons will destroy everything.” Thus we had hired on Grayson to make scrumptious meals and fend voracious intruders by day while the four of us drove across the dust-choking plains in search of game…..
As we huddled close to our charcoal fire, gazing uneasily at the predatory eyes crouching seemingly a few leaps away in the inky dark, Noah gleefully spun “true” tales of hyena and big cat attacks. He and Richard also swapped military stories of serving in Vietnam – ironically on opposite sides. (Apparently, some contorted Russia/Tanaznia treaty had placed a bewildered young Noah training in North Vietnam camps.) Not surprisingly, both men shared a chest of anecdotes concerning military inefficiency – SNAFU….
Did Noah live up to his biblical name in showing us all the animals? Was it really his fault that we were sprinting down this trail toward the jeep with an ardently perturbed cape buffalo right behind us? More about this fellow traveler will be revealed in further pages.
Intriguing Folks Encountered Along Life’s Journey
The waves slammed him jarringly onto the sand, but the waters had been kind. He emerged filled with more fish than he could hold. From the dune above came his wife’s unmistakable voice, hopeful, but with a pleading urgency. In response, he joined his fellow commuters, heading on up to home. Crouched in our perch in the twilight, Lorraine and I emitted softly whispered cheers of support as he stormed the steep sand cliff.
Puffer, as we’d nicknamed him, seemed totally unperturbed that he held all the wrong tools for this climb. New Zealand’s Korora penguin rounds out at about 23 inches, with beautifully hydrodynamic flippers and widely webbed feet that send him sleekly powering through ocean waters with remarkable grace. Alas, all these finely evolved aquatic attributes worked against Puffer and his fellows as they waddled up against the nearly sheer dune, each heading for the family nest dug into the soft, sliding sands, 100 feet above.
From scores of nests, hundreds of chicks filled the evening breeze with an encouraging clamor. Puffer, distinguishing his children’s call above all the others, knew they were anxious for their share of seafood which Dad would regurgitate into their waiting maws. Thus spurred on, he churned his squat legs hoisting his rotund frame upslope. Each step marked Puffer’s labored progress in the dune. Lorraine and I watched this scene of parental courage, sympathizing with this slate blue penguin as his wings flapped futilely and his bill almost scraped the sand before him. Then, after several minutes, almost half way to his goal, the exhausted Puffer started to shift right. Wincingly, like a fall in slow motion, we saw the prints of his struggling feet mark an agonizing backwards descent to the bottom of the high dune. Without so much as a shrug, Puffer launched his climb again.
So, did Puffer make the nest to his hungrily waiting family? Did the kids get fed? Was his wife appreciative? Why did New Zealand’s Maori natives name this penguin “Korora?” More about this fellow traveler will be explained in further pages.
****
“It’s call sounds like the wind blowing over an empty whiskey bottle…” he explained. Freshly descended from a broad meandering across Tibet’s yak-rich plateau, New Zealand ornithologist Rhys Buckingham was the first and only non-native Lorraine and I had run across in a couple of weeks. “You see,” Rhys enthused as we trekked along a stony track some miles west of Lhasa, “Everybody is insisting that the South Island Kokako is an extinct bird. But I’ve been assembling proof – almost undeniable – that he exists! Just as alive as when Captain Cook wrote that description of his call.”
With Tibetan tourism still a couple of decades in the future, the rare foreigners who finagled their way into this physically rugged and spiratually rich land tended toward the venturesome and fascinatingly eccentric. Traveling solo, Rhys had landed in Tibet as part of a swing up through several South Sea isles, on into China, where he discovered some remarkably inexpensive dental work, and then a cut across Asia. During stops for porridge and yak-butter tea, Rhys regaled us with tales of his quest for this elusive, yellow-wattled avian. Always hunting, hoping, his was a life of long forays into the South Island’s deep, jungled bush; setting up exotic recording and photographic devices before the first hint of dawn – searching patches of moss for signs the Kokako’s distinctive snip-cutting – always tantalizingly close. After far too short a time, we came to a parting of paths. We were heading the 90 kilometers south toward Everest, and Rhys was continuing west toward Nepal. Amidst our adieus, Rhys proffered and invitation to come down to New Zealand and join him in his next quest. Then flashing his hallmark wry smile he added, “When we find one, I hear the wattles make excellent soup.” We replied that we couldn’t pass up so bizarre an opportunity.
So did we reunite and trod in Rhys Buckingham’s footsteps? Did we discover further proof of his amazing bird? Well, that’s another story for another time…
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APPETIZERS
On Money:
Money is only a yardstick for those who have achieved, but ‘tis a vital walking stick for those still struggling up the trail.
On Success:
Growth doesn’t happen. It demands architects of change and willing engineers to innovate. And, of course, oceans of enthusiastic sweat.
When your own company grows, its so exciting you can scarcely sleep. When your company ceases to grow, you cannot sleep either.
On Leadership:
A great leader can inspire his team to scrabble up and over a wall bare handed. A great manager makes sure there are ample ladders leaning against the wall so everyone can get over swiftly. Notice, I do not say they have to be two different people.
On the benefits of Flattening Your Organization
Pyramids are great. Pyramids are Impressive. But they house only the dead…
On Power:
Real power is as fleeting as romance in a brothel. Take it neither to heart or head.
Alexander the Great inherited an empire. Ghengis Kahn was an orphan. Opportunities of birth, like the taste of old Scotch, are highly overrated.
ENTREES
The Ultimate Leadership Challenge
He walks into a strange hall in a foreign country filled with nearly 100 consummate professionals whom he has never met. They know only his name plus whatever hints of his reputation they have gleaned from the brief biographical handout. Fortunately, theirs is one of the five languages he speaks fluently. He has come to imprint his vision on them and on a product under tight deadline. Each of these nationally renowned professionals holds his or her own personal vision, and most have been hired at least once to employ that interpretation in creating this product for other employers.
He mounts the stairs and comes before them. In stature, he stands half a foot shorter than the average American CEO. Yet his stance and presence gleam with authoritative intensity, radiating the message that you do not want to mess with this guy. Even before he greets them in their mother tongue, he has taken command. He has banished what might become a wasteful contest of wills, because he simply does not have the time.
From the moment Maestro Jacques Lacombe lifts his baton at the first orchestral rehearsal, he will have a mere eight hours – four rehearsals – to produce a two-hour symphony before some of the most discerning ears in the nation. When he sets his baton down after the performance’s final coda and sweeps his arms majestically upward, signaling his fellow musicians to rise, he will turn, briefly bow, and acknowledge the standing ovation. Audience members will whisper to each other about subtle nuances of “his” rendition. Reviewers will remark on his ability to draw out the optimal performance of individual musicians and blend them as a united whole. The proof of teamwork and leadership lies in the product. Bravo….
Cricket vs Baseball
From his article The Second Most Popular Sport
The trouble with Cricket is that it is so ineffably British. It’s just that stodgy, over-dressed version of baseball, where men in snow-white padding fuss about on a manicured lawn all mired up in some labyrinthine set of obscure rules and memories of The Grand Empire. Or so it may seem to us unitiated yankees…….
The obvious difference on the cricket pitch is Teamwork. You see, the trouble with baseball is that it is so ineffably American. I – a rugged individual baseball batter – armed with nothing more than my big stick, square off against an enemy army of fielders. And I slug that horsehide spheroid with all my god-given might, and I churn my legs to earn as many bases as I alone can grind out against the foe. Then some other guy, recently traded and paid to wear the same shirt as mine, gets his chance. ‘Tis exactly the appropriate version of the bat-and-ball sport for a nation of lone (and more than a little self-absorbed) pioneers fighting their way in the wilderness.
However, if I were a human resource manager looking for some fun corporate team-building exercise, I might just swap the softball field for the cricket pitch. A cricket match is a deliberately engineered group-coordination effort. The kind of stuff that neglects stars, and builds empires…..
Man, Deer, and The Forests
You could hear the rhythmic hoof beats advancing through the forest. I had crawled out of the old, low canvas tent my father brought on our camping trips, to answer nature’s call. Squinting into the dawn, I searched the blaze of autumn colors for the source. And then it broke brush. With arrogant magnificence, an immense stag leapt into the small clearing of this North Jersey woods, bearing easily aloft a broad antler rack of at least 12 points. I stood frozen with slack-jawed awe and beheld this stately, grand animal with whom I shared this moment. In a few bounds, he crossed the clearing and slipped into the foliage. There are some things a boy never forgets.