More about Hoodoos

Before posting the long-overdue final installment on my search for the Kneeling Camel, I want to reflect on the grandeur of hoodoos, those elegant columns of sedimentary rock and harder capstones.  Undoubtedly, hoodoos have always captured the human imagination—depicting the dramatic tension between the everlasting and the ephemeral, nature in transition.  There is a delicately balanced rock in Palo Duro Canyon I have walked under dozens of times over the years, and every time I step beneath it, I pause and look thirty feet up, wondering if this will be that inevitable moment when the boulder comes crashing down, smashing me into its destiny.

Palo Duro Canyon has an array of hoodoos, some better known than others.  One is called the Devil's Tombstone, a precariously tilted slab of stone frozen in mid-slide with Old Scratch's invisible hand seemingly holding it in place. 

1930s-era postcard of The Devil's
Tombstone—the cowboy and his horse
appear to be superimposed.

An examination of old and new photographs suggests there are—or at least were—actually two hoodoos in the canyon bearing that name, one immortalized in a 1930s hand-tinted picture postcard and one that can still be seen on the Givens, Spicer, and Lowry Running Trail. [Correction: the image below is of a formation called the Red Star Ridge hoodoo.]

Correction: This is a formation called the Red Star Ridge
hoodoo, as it looked when I photographed it in 2004.

The five-mile (one-way) GSL Trail provides the most scenic route to the Lighthouse, the best known hoodoo in the state park.  If you have ever driven past a billboard advertising "the Grand Canyon of Texas," you have undoubtedly seen an image of Lighthouse Peak, an enormous rock formation that rises 150 feet from an elevated pedestal bridge that leads to another imposing formation called Castle Peak.  It's too bad the two features are so close together since the Lighthouse overshadows its otherwise imposing neighbor.

Vintage postcard of the Lighthouse—
Castle Peak is visible on the right.

When I first hiked the original trail to the Lighthouse in the mid-1970s, its capstone was flat, thick, and seemingly indestructible.  In the decades since, its top has slowly eroded, and it is possible I will get to see it break loose in my lifetime, a prospect that excites me as much as it disturbs me.

Another view of the Lighthouse and Castle
Peaks, as I photographed them in 2004—
the capstone has eroded in the nearly forty
years since I first hiked to the Lighthouse.

Sitting in the shadow of the Lighthouse in 1983 when I was in graduate school at West Texas State University (in nearby Canyon), I listened to one of my favorite English professors, Russell Sparling, speak of the humbling power of nature.  The landscape overwhelms us with its grandeur and scale, he told me, and it reminds us of our own mortality.

That brings me back to the Kneeling Camel.  When my good friend Rick and I were combing the archives of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum many years ago, we were puzzled by conflicting images of the Camel.  While most photographs and postcards showed the formation consisting of two parts—the slender neck and head, the much larger hump—earlier images showed an additional column wedged between neck and hump.  Later photos revealed the broken base of that mystery column, and I long wondered how it managed to topple while the equally delicate but more exposed neck had survived.

Though I have no proof, I am convinced that early twentieth century visitors knocked out the middle column.  With three columns, after all, the formation only vaguely resembled a camel.  In their naming (and taming) the formation, the men who long ago posed on its tenuous ridge made the Camel their own and recreated an image they could understand and control.  Like so many explorers before them, those men who "discovered" the Kneeling Camel stole its natural identity and transformed it into something they wanted it to be.

This hand-tinted postcard of the Kneeling Camel amplifies
the projected animal characteristics of the hoodoo.
Note the pronounced eye and snout.

When Rick and I asked a seasoned park ranger to help us locate the elusive Kneeling Camel, he did his best to discourage us.  "The Kneeling Camel doesn't exist anymore," he insisted.  "I could lead you right to it, but you would never recognize anything even remotely resembling a camel."

We wondered if the old ranger was telling the truth or if he was merely trying to keep us from exploring the dangerous fringes of the park.  And who could blame him?  From the time I was a kid, I had heard stories about day hikers getting hurt or, worse yet, getting killed, while heading off-trail in the canyon, and it was the rangers who had to rescue them or carry their bodies out.  Rick and I were not dissuaded, however.  If the Kneeling Camel had survived the better part of the twentieth century, we were going to find it.  It was just of a matter of time.

The Kneeling Camel, Part One

Maybe it was the name that captured my sense of adventure.  The Kneeling Camel conjured up images of Arabian deserts and Bedouin camps, hardly the sort of thing you would expect to see on the High Plains of the Texas Panhandle.  But it was the rock formation itself that drew me to unexplored regions of Palo Duro Canyon.  My buddy Rick and I first learned about the Kneeling Camel while rummaging through the archives of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in the city of Canyon.  We were West Texas State University graduate students, English literature scholars pretending to be history majors to gain access to seemingly endless file cabinets loaded with yellowing newspaper clippings and fragile photographs.

1930s postcard of the Kneeling Camel, Cita Canyon

Ah, the photographs.  We found images of CCC workers from the 1930s posed on a rocky outcrop, and behind them the most glorious formation that really did look like a camel.  You could almost make out an eye and snout on its craggy profile, and, of course, it had a hump.  Then, there were the watercolor and hand-tinted picture postcards that gave the Camel a storybook quality.

I knew all about hoodoos—columns of exposed dirt and rock, capped with slabs of sandstone or other sedimentary rock that preserved the distinctive structure.  Palo Duro Canyon's iconic natural formation is a hoodoo named the Lighthouse.  One hundred fifty feet tall, it dominates the landscape as hearty visitors approach.  As a teenager my first real hiking adventure was a six-mile trek, there and back, to see the Lighthouse.

The Lighthouse, Palo Duro Canyon

The Kneeling Camel was altogether different—remote, rarely seen, relatively unknown—and, as we discovered in our research, it overlooked Cita Canyon, a place we had never explored, just beyond the southern border of the state park.  Plus, there was an element of uncertainty that appealed to Rick and me.  We read that the formation had been damaged years before, and when we asked a park ranger to help us locate it, he insisted the Kneeling Camel had completely disappeared and would be impossible to recognize.  We dismissed his claims, convinced he was merely trying to keep us away from undeveloped areas of the park.

We knew the challenge was enormous, but armed with a topographical map, trail snacks, and canteens full of water, Rick and I set out one Saturday morning in March, hoping to find our quarry the first time out.  Based on our research, including annotated maps, we knew, within a mile, where the Camel had to be located.  How hard could it be to find it?

What we hadn't anticipated were two obstacles.  First, we couldn't access Cita Canyon directly but would have to climb to the western rim of Palo Duro Canyon and then hike across an open but rough plateau.  The climb was 600 feet, and because there was no maintained trail, our first challenge was gaining easy access to the plateau.  On the map the plateau was called Mesquite Park, but to this day Rick and I refer to it, simply, as the Mesa.

After a month of trial and error, climbing to the mesa from several approaches, from a gentle but lengthy ridge to the most direct assault, we finally concluded there was no easy or fast route to the western rim.  We finally settled on a faint horse trail that hadn't been used in decades, sections of which required us to scramble over loose dirt and rock.  After several trips, we learned our way and could reach the rim of the Palo Duro Canyon in just over an hour.

Rick hiking the "best" route to the Mesa

The second obstacle to finding the Camel was the uneven terrain on the Cita Canyon side of the Mesa.  The section we decided to explore was a mile long—but that was on a straight line.  What the topographical map didn't show was the number of points that jutted out and down into the canyon, and because we knew the Camel was located below the rim, we had to walk to the end of every promontory and back before going on to the next point.

After a month of searching for the Camel, hiking all day on Saturdays and half days during the week when we could sneak away from our jobs as teaching assistants, we seemed no closer to finding the Kneeling Camel, and we began to wonder if the old ranger had been right.  Maybe there was nothing left to see.  But we weren't ready to give up.  As a consolation prize we stumbled upon an amazing find, a time capsule in the form of an abandoned line camp, complete with a working windmill.

In my next installment I will pick up the story of the line camp, including a late-night encounter with coyotes, and our continuing search for the Kneeling Camel.

Line camp windmill

Trail Mix

In graduate school my good friend Rick Smith and I spent many a stolen afternoon and free Saturday hiking in the backcountry of Palo Duro Canyon (in the Texas Panhandle).  One trek, in particular, lasted a few hours longer than we had intended.  

Rick looking into Cita Canyon, 1984 (Note the canvas knapsack.)

After searching unsuccessfully for an elusive hoodoo formation called the Kneeling Camel, we rested in the shade of a mountain juniper, whereupon Rick produced two oranges from his canvas knapsack and handed one to me.  That amazingly sweet piece of fruit just might be the most delicious thing I have ever eaten.

Trail food always tastes better than anything eaten at home or in a restaurant.  Always.  In those days I would toss a Red Delicious apple and a pack of cheese and crackers in my daypack and strap a canteen over my shoulder and I was good to go.  He travels best who travels lightest, I must have thought.

Not anymore.  These days nothing less than a full meal and a couple of snacks will satisfy me on a day hike.  Even more significant is the kind of food I carry on the trail.  No more processed snacks full of hydrogenated oil.  No dry turkey sandwich even.  I am more likely to pack a slice of vegetable quiche and a bag of carrot sticks.  For a snack I might take a bag of homemade trail mix, and my choice of apple is more likely to be Macintosh or Pink Lady. 

Over the years my buddy Rick has maintained a simpler style, usually stowing no more than a CLIF bar or two in the same knapsack he carried decades ago.  It's a sign of restraint or unwavering friendship that he doesn't mock my trail cuisine, but I have caught his sly smile as I unpacked my Thai pasta salad and rice crackers.  The diagonal-cut cucumbers may have clashed with the desert air of the Davis Mountains, but I could not have imagined a tastier meal. 

How do I account for such a dramatic shift in my eating habits on the trail?  Part of the answer is surely a marked change in tastes and a stronger sense of health consciousness.  In middle age I monitor my fat and calorie intake much more than I did in my twenties.  But there's something else at work, I suspect.  I am more organized than I used to be, less spontaneous.  Gone are the days of raiding the pantry just before running out the back door.  

Just as gone are the days of hiking in blue jeans and work boots, of setting out without a hat or sunscreen.  No, these days a day hike is executed with the precision of a small vacation.  I wear the right weight of clothing and stow the right supplies, food, and amount of water the specific adventure calls for.

My typical hiking attire, 1984

That's not to say everything always goes according to plan.  Last summer my wife Susan and I set out on what we thought was morning hike down to the Gunnison River in Colorado.  Wanting to keep our packs light for the steep descent—1,800 feet in one mile—we took plenty of water but only light snacks, figuring we would return by lunchtime.  The trail map advised us to allow for three and a half hours down and back, but it took us closer to five.  

Cooling our feet in the Gunnison River

As we soaked our sore feet in the icy cold water of the Gunnison, Susan and I polished off the last handful of GORP—"good old raisins and peanuts" (not to mention M&Ms).  No doubt it was loaded with hydrogenated oil, but that trail mix was still delicious.  What I would have given for one of Rick's juicy navel oranges.

GORP

Ten Records That Rocked My World

My first musical memory is connected to my babysitter, a fourteen-year-old girl who introduced me to the Beatles. When she dropped the needle on a 45 version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and those electric guitar chords popped out of a tiny fabric-covered speaker, my world was forever changed. Her suitcase-style record player was a treasure chest that, nearly fifty years later, still richly rewards me. More than Mad magazine, Barnabas Collins, or even girls, popular music, especially rock-and-roll, defined my youth and shaped my personality. Of the 1,500-plus albums I have owned over the years, the following ten titles give a sense of the person I became.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Vince Guaraldi scored my early childhood. A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted on CBS when I was in first grade, and like that first Beatles single, the piano-centered signature piece, "Linus and Lucy," was instantly etched in my memory bank. Who can hear that boogie woogie rhythm without picturing the Peanuts characters dancing like zombies? And is there a more rollicking melody than "Skating" or a more melancholy holiday tune than "Christmastime Is Here"? I did not buy the CD soundtrack until I was in my twenties, but it remains the only Christmas album I play year-round (much to my wife's annoyance). I didn't realize it when I was six, but Guaraldi introduced me to the world of jazz; years later I discovered the extent to which he was influenced by Bill Evans and how Guaraldi, in turn, informed the musical voices of Liz Story and George Winston.

In the Court of the Crimson King: An Observation by King Crimson

What a title, what a kaleidoscopic musical experience, what an album cover. It still amazes me that I actually bought this LP when I was only ten years old. Of course, I would never have chosen the album on my own. My oldest brother Don took me to a boutique / record store called The Sow's Ear and placed the record in my hands. A sampling of song titles—"21st Century Schizoid Man," "I Talk to the Wind," and "March for No Reason"—tells you all you need to know. I never felt compelled to take psychedelic drugs; listening to my most adventurous music provided enough of a trip. Consider the following lyrics from "Moonchild": "She's a moonchild / Gathering the flowers in a garden, ... / Drifting on the echoes of the hours." If that doesn't warp your head, nothing will. In the coming years I plugged into King Crimson's exquisitely titled Lark's Tongues in Aspic and Starless and Bible Black, the latter taking its title from a Dylan Thomas poem. Crimson eventually led me to the Moody Blues, ELP, Jethro Tull, and Pink Floyd. More than anyone, it was brother Don, lead guitarist in a band named Gilmore, who had the most profound influence on my musical tastes. His record collection featured the likes of Spirit, the Collectors, and Ten Years After.

Abbey Road

Settling on only one Beatles album was a great challenge. I love every LP the group recorded, from the incomparable Rubber Soul and Revolver to the admittedly second-tiered Yellow Submarine and Let It Be. Abbey Road, however, was the first Beatles record that was my own, not part of my two brothers' collections. I received it as a Christmas gift in 1969, the year it was released, and no piece of vinyl was ever played more on my modest JC Penney stereo. The first side of the album, with its disjointed selection of songs, hits only one sour note, the sadistic "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." Otherwise, it's hard to pick a favorite among "Come Together," "Something," and "Oh! Darling." Even Ringo's self-penned "Octopus's Garden" is a joy. Side Two is a mostly uninterrupted suite of unfinished melodies that somehow sound great together, and no Beatles song is more beautiful than George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun."

I have never grown tired of the Beatles' music. Their albums are in constant rotation on my iPod, and when their catalogue was remastered in 2009, I eagerly snapped up both mono and stereo boxed sets. I still get excited when "new" releases appear. I have pre-ordered On Air—Live at the BBC, Volume 2, which hits the shelves later this month. Of course, "hits the shelves" is a deceptive phrase since very little music is still sold at brick-and-mortar stores.

Jerry Jeff Walker

Jerry Jeff's self-titled LP, his Decca debut, may not be his most popular record—that distinction belongs to ¡Viva Terlingua!—but Jerry Jeff Walker is a better record. For one thing it includes two of my favorite Guy Clark songs, "That Old Time Feeling" and "L.A. Freeway." I also have a great association with Walker's own "Hill Country Rain." Years ago my older brother Tom, my best friend Tim, and I visited the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin to see the progressive country band Greezy Wheels perform. While we were sitting under the covered Beer Garden between sets, "Hill Country Rain" played over the P.A. system right when it began to rain. I heard Jerry Jeff in concert on three occasions in the 1970s, and one of those times he was actually sober. I am pleased to report that he gave up alcohol long ago. Jerry Jeff led me to performers unlike any I had heard before—Michael Murphey (before he added the Martin to his name) Willie Nelson, Willis Alan Ramsey, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

This isn't Joni Mitchell's best album, not by a long shot, but it was the first one I bought and has remained a sentimental favorite ever since it was released in 1977, my first semester in college. My sister-in-law introduced me to Mitchell's music, and I quickly realized that Joni was the greatest female guitarist and songwriter of her generation. Several musicians who were influenced by Mitchell—Rickie Lee Jones, Shawn Colvin, Sheryl Crow, and Patty Griffin—subsequently became some of my favorite artists. Don Juan's Reckless Daughter also introduced me to bassist Jaco Pastorius and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, both of whom were in the jazz fusion band Weather Report at the time. Don Juan finds Mitchell at the height of experimentation. The style of the album is difficult to pigeonhole. It's part folk, part rock-and-roll, part jazz, part overblown improvisation (the sixteen-minute "Paprika Plains" fills the second side of the double album). While the production values have not dated well, the songs still sound new, and I am always surprised by the places her melodies go. As Mitchell herself says, in a cartoon bubble in the artwork, "In my dweems we fwy."

Look closely at the cover of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. The black man on the left-hand side is actually Mitchell herself. That detail hints at the sly nature of this album. My advice to any serious music collector is to pick up every one of Mitchell's nineteen albums.

Breakfast in the Field

Michael Hedges' debut recording, released in 1981, is often called New Age music, in part because it was released on Will Ackerman's Windham Hill record label, but it's not an accurate description. I'm not sure how to categorize Breakfast in the Field—it captures a unique style of acoustic guitar by one of the best players in the last thirty years. Listen carefully and you will hear echoes of Joni Mitchell and Stephen Stills, whose unique sounds Hedges has managed to blend. The album is a mere thirty-four minutes long, but every track is a winner—from the quiet "The Happy Couple" (which sounds overdubbed, though it's not) to "Funky Avocado" (made all the more funky by the addition of Michael Manring's fretless bass lines) to the title track (which sounds like it was written and recorded in a single two-minute take). Breakfast in the Field continues to be one of the most frequently played albums in my collection. Sadly, Hedges died in 1997 when his car went over a cliff in Northern California.

That's the Way of the World

I had heard Earth Wind & Fire's music on the radio for years (their recording of "Got to Get You into My Life" has to be the best cover version of a Beatles song, even if it appears on the wretched 1978 disco-inflected soundtrack for the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, starring the Bee Gees), but I did not pick up their albums until a college friend introduced me to several of their albums. From 1974's Open Our Eyes to 1979's I Am, the group could do no wrong; every one of the albums during that period is a winner. That's the Way of the World gets my vote as their best LP because it includes my favorite single, "Shining Star." The real power of Earth Wind & Fire is in the infectious nature of their music. I cannot listen to them without being in a good mood. The tight vocal arrangements (and unbelievably high harmonies), the intensity of the horn arrangements, and the collective energy of the band cannot be suppressed. The only thing difficult about listening to Earth Wind & Fire is keeping the volume down; I always want to turn the stereo up louder than I should.

Five Leaves Left

Nick Drake did not become widely known until the song "Pink Moon" appeared in a 1999 Volkswagen ad, but I picked up a copy of his debut, Five Leaves Left, in the mid-1980s. It's a good thing I started with this album and not the overproduced follow-up, Bryter Layter. Otherwise, I may have given up on him and not gone on to the elegant Pink Moon album, the last recording released in his lifetime. In addition to Drake's acoustic guitar, Five Leaves Left features Danny Thompson on double bass and Richard Thompson on electric guitar. Actually, it was the latter performer (original lead guitarist for Fairport Convention) who led me to the enigmatic Drake. I have followed Richard Thompson's career for more than thirty years and have seen him in concert four times. Try as I might, I still can't make sense of Drake's lyrics, but that doesn't make them any less fascinating. In "River Man," for instance, he says, "Going to tell him all I can / About the plan / For the lilac time," adding, "If he tells me all he knows / About the way his river flows / I don't suppose / It's meant for me." His cryptic words only add to his mystique and the mystery surrounding his death at age twenty-six.

Kind of Blue

Imagine that you are walking into a Manhattan street at midnight. A late winter storm has blown through, so you turn your jacket collar up. You hop into a cab and coast through the rainy streets of a still bustling city. The music that plays in your head is "Freddie Freeloader," the second track on Kind of Blue. I'm not going out on a limb when I assert that Kind of Blue is the best jazz album ever recorded. I defy anyone to name a tighter recording, a more influential release, or a more precise example of American jazz at its peak. What is most amazing is the fact that the five tracks that comprise the album were recorded in only two days in March and April of 1959. From the first time I played the LP, I knew it was something special. The cool rhythm is set by Bill Evans' piano, Paul Chambers' bass, and Jimmy Cobbs' drums, and over that John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley improvise on saxophone. Miles Davis' trumpet, playing with and without a mute, is your cabbie, so there's no need to buckle up. You'll be fine.

My copy of Kind of Blue makes up the fourth disc of a six-CD set of Miles Davis and John Coltrane's Complete Columbia Recordings (released in 2004).

The Orchestral Music of Debussy, Album 1

The greatest gift my first wife ever gave me just might be The Orchestral Music of Debussy, Album 1. Up until that time my knowledge of classical music was limited to what I had played in high school band. Debussy was an eye-opener. The composer wrote The Children's Corner for his four-year-old daughter, Chou-Chou. The six-movement piece celebrates the innocence of childhood play, and like most of the pieces on the album, it was written for piano and orchestrated later. As much as I enjoy Debussy's orchestral works, his original compositions for piano are even more powerful. Over the years I have continued to add CDs of his music to my collection. His Complete Works for Solo Piano were recorded by Alain Planès on a piano similar to the one Debussy used to write his music. This 5-CD set, released in 2009, is now my favorite collection of the composer's music.

Like so many other albums I have owned over the years, The Orchestral Music of Debussy, Album I, opened many doors for me. There are many French composers I have discovered since (including Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, and Francis Poulenc), and my appreciation for serious music is still growing, even as I continue to listen to those records that defined my youth.

The Last Paperboy

I started my first paying job at the age of twelve. That's when I became a paperboy, delivering the Amarillo Globe-Times, the afternoon newspaper in my hometown, something I did for nearly four years. Other than in my current position as a community college teacher, it was the longest period I ever held a job.

I loved being a paperboy. It gave me a sense of freedom and taught me what it meant to work independently. As long as I delivered the papers by suppertime, I could go at my own pace. I spent my time walking outdoors, something I still enjoy doing, and met a lot of interesting people along the way. It doesn't sound like much, but my paper route provided enough money to buy the things that gave me the greatest pleasures—the latest Doobie Brothers album, a Jolly Rancher Fire Stix, or a Dr Pepper. It also allowed me to go to the movies with my friends on Saturdays.  I even managed to put a little money into a savings account.

The hardest part of being a paperboy was collecting money from my customers. While most people paid on time, a few put me off, but I eventually learned how to guilt them. I explained that whether they paid or not, I had to turn over a set amount of money to my route manager, and any monthly subscription that I failed to collect would come out of my own pocket. It always felt strange to count up the money I had collected, $100 or so in cash and checks, and then hand most of it to someone else.

At Christmas I got bonuses—tips, gift certificates, and occasional small gifts. One of my customers drove a delivery truck for Mac Tools, and one year he gave me a personal grooming kit. Every item was stamped with the Mac name (in that uniquely curved logo the company still uses). To this day I cannot clip my fingernails without thinking of the Mac clippers that customer gave me.  Too bad I have forgotten his name.

Oddly, one of the best parts of the job was delivering papers on Sunday morning, the one day of the week when the morning and afternoon editions were combined. Between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m., my route manager would drop two bundles on the corner. Because my bedroom was at the front of our house, I usually heard the familiar thump thump just before he drove away. The Sunday paper was much larger (hence, the two bundles instead of the usual single one). It happened that my route was on my own street, and I lived exactly halfway along it. This allowed me to divide the delivery in two, loading up half the papers in my bag.

On snowy mornings I used to wrap the papers in the relative warmth of the garage. That way I could wear gloves on the route and go more quickly. There was something peaceful about walking quietly through people's front yards and gently tossing a paper onto their porches. The solitude appealed to me the most, that and the soft sound of the paper sliding over concrete and stopping at the door. Even on the coldest winter mornings, I took great pleasure in stepping through a crunchy layer of snow and hearing the repeated sound as my boots broke the surface. Every so often I'd look back at my footsteps, always arcing, never in a straight line.

Then, there was the art of the fold, knowing how to set up an even rhythm—fold, wrap, toss; fold, wrap, toss. There was a correct way to hold the paper, from the fold with the bottom side facing down. To do otherwise would be to go against the natural crease of the paper. I always folded into thirds—right side first, followed by left, and then a fold down the center. With that final fold I rolled a rubber band off my left hand, twisted it over once with my right, and then readied the paper for the toss. I can still feel the sensation of newsprint on my hands, which turned black within minutes of starting the route.

The first year I was a paperboy, my older brother Tommy also had a route, one street over. On Sunday mornings, after delivering our papers, we often went to Dunkin Donuts. I loved the sleepy feeling of walking in the dead of night for no other reason than to drink a cup of coffee and to gobble a hot glazed donut. By the time we headed home, the first hint of twilight appeared in the east, but as long as we made it back before sunrise, we could safely crawl back into bed and—if we were lucky—ditch Sunday school.

Baby Steps

A Walk in the Woods
It's a five-minute walk from my front door to Horsepen Bayou, and from there it's just a hop, skip, and a jump into the wilderness of suburban Houston. In December, my wife Susan and I will venture into these woods in search of a fallen branch ... but not just any branch.

The backwoods of Sylvan Rodriguez Park

We have observed this ritual for several years, and the goal is fairly straightforward: find a branch that's four to five feet long, has several offshoots, and won't crumble in our hands. It's not always as simple as it sounds, but we know when we've found the right branch. Once we bring it home, we anchor the branch in a corner of the dining room and load it with handmade decorations and a string of lights. Voilà, we have an instant Christmas tree. The entire adventure uses no gasoline, creates no pollution, and adds no wear and tear on our car. The only energy expended is the calories we burn walking to and from the park. No experience could be more fun or healthier.  And we spare the life of a tree. Think of that.

Last year's Christmas branch

A Ride in the Park

Like most people, Susan and I consume a lot of energy—driving to and from work, heating and cooling our house, cooking our meals. And there are the energy expenditures we don't think about, such as those it takes to produce, package, and transport the stuff we buy from halfway around the world. All that energy consumption adds up.

So how can we consume less? What can we do to make incremental changes in our lives? Food journalist Michael Pollan says we cannot "wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we're living our lives" (31). It's up to us, all of us, to make positive changes in our lives, no matter how small.  It can be doing something as simple as hopping on your bike to run an errand. Not only will you save a little money, but also you might discover a quiet little park you hadn't seen before. That's what happened to Susan and me a few months ago when we rode our bikes to the grocery store. We sat in the park as the sun set and watched a hawk fly from tree to tree. It was a beautiful experience that came to us by chance, and it was one we never would have experienced if we had driven by the park. You have to get close to nature to appreciate it.

Camino South Park, Clear Lake, Texas

Who knows, if you begin riding your bike to run errands, you might continue riding for the sheer pleasure of it. After Hurricane Ike went through Houston in 2008, Susan and I got our bikes out because we weren't sure when we would be able to get gasoline, but in the five years since then, we have ridden our bicycles almost every week. Every time I get on a bike, even after decades of riding, I still feel the thrill of balancing on two wheels and gliding through the air. It feels almost like flying.

Susan at Huntsville State Park

A Stroll in the Yard

Earlier this year, Susan and I decided to make a more significant dent in our energy consumption. Susan put an ad on Craig's List, and within a few hours we sold our sputtering ten-year-old lawnmower for fifty dollars. We applied that money toward the purchase of a reel mower, the kind of push mower your grandfather used in the first half of the twentieth century—except this mower is designed with twenty-first century technology.

Fiskars Reel Mower

You can imagine how quiet is, and best of all, it uses no gasoline or motor oil, and there's no spark plug to replace or crank to pull. It just takes a little elbow grease to operate as well as a little extra time. I used to spend thirty minutes mowing my yard with a power mower, and now it takes me forty. While our yard is admittedly small, if it were twice as big, it would take only twenty additional minutes to mow it.

A Hike in the Wilderness

A few years ago, while hiking to the top of Mount Garfield, at Crater Lake (in Oregon), Susan and I met a woman who was carrying a water bottle in a beautiful sling. It was woven in brilliant colors, and she told us she had bought it in Guatemala. I coveted that sling but never found one like it. A few months later, as luck would have it, Susan saw a photo on Pinterest of a water bottle sling made from old cargo pants.  I reminded her that I had a pair of worn cargo shorts that were threadbare, so she cut out the pockets, sewed on straps made of cotton webbing, and we had our own unique slings for water bottles.

Homemade water bottle sling,
Acadia National Park (in Maine)

We take our slings with us every time we travel and even carry them on walks in the neighborhood. Those old cargo shorts had been favorites of mine, but they had so many holes that I'd stopped wearing them in public years before. Because they were so comfortable, however, I couldn't make myself part with them. Repurposing the shorts not only gave them a new function but also allowed me to hang onto something I valued for sentimental reasons.

Hiking at Petroglyph National Monument
in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Positive Consumption

Activist Brian Tokar asks if the "small changes in personal lifeways [are] sufficient to change the world and prevent catastrophe." He acknowledges that the answer is no but adds, "Moving forward, from changes at the personal level to the community level and beyond, challenges us to reach beyond conventional expectation and create living examples of a richer quality of life that's considerably lower in material consumption" (248). It is easy to think it is a sacrifice to consume less, but the reality in this case is that less can mean more. The richness to which Tokar alludes comes from something as simple as taking a walk in the woods and coming back with a branch.

Works Cited

Keogh, Martin, ed. Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2010. Print.

Pollan, Michael. "Why Bother?" Keogh 29-37.

Tokar, Brian. "To Endure Climate Chaos, Live Dangerously and Cultivate Hope." Keogh 247-52.

The Name Game (Part I)

Early in life I learned the pleasure of naming animals, as well as the power that came with it.  I was a suburban Adam, labeling the critters in my tiny universe—turtles, rabbits, and (mostly) dogs.  When our dog Tippy gave birth to a litter of puppies, I named one of them Jerry—after myself—hoping, I supposed, that my parents would let me keep him.  They didn't.

That's me holding Jerry the dog.

Tippy was the first in a succession of family dogs.  Next came Sally and then Sox, who lived to the ripe old age of eleven.  Sox was certainly not an original name (how many dogs and cats have been burdened with that too-cute moniker?), but I must have thought the spelling was clever.  Sox was a Border Collie mix, but the only way she even remotely resembled a Border Collie was in her coloring.  She had the energy of an old cat and was just as interested in fetching, or playing at all, really.  However, she was the most loyal dog I've ever had, and she wanted nothing more than to be loved.

Sox in her golden years

My adult experiences with dogs have been less fortunate.  After a sweet but high-strung Dalmatian named Barney was killed (by a train, of all things), I adopted a mutt named Effie (after Sam Spade's secretary in The Maltese Falcon).  My ex-wife let me choose the name because she knew I was resistant to getting the dog.  I was right to be.

The first night we had Effie (she was just a few months old), she whined endlessly, and when I reached into her kennel to comfort her, she bit through my thumb.  When I turned the light on, I could see that she was frothing at the mouth and convulsing.  In the morning I made a trip to the doctor's office for a tetanus shot while Cindy rushed Effie to the vet's.  The poor pup had suffered a seizure, brought on by distemper, and from that point on, she suffered the effects.  She was often unruly, aggressive, disoriented  A year later she was diagnosed with cancer, but after a series of complicated (and costly) procedures, she recovered.

Effie on a rainy day—the oppressive
weather matched her personality.

When Cindy and I divorced and I had to move to an apartment in another town, it was obvious that neither of us could keep Effie.  But I found her a good home with a loving family, and the last time I saw Effie, she was happier than ever.

After my two previous experiences, I decided to steer clear of dogs, and it would be another ten years before a four-legged critter walked into my life.  That, of course, was Chabo, whom I described in an earlier post.

The ever-circular Chabo doing what she did best

When Chabo died, my wife Susan wanted to get another cat almost immediately, but for a variety of reasons, none of which I will chronicle here, we didn't find a suitable match for two months.  Less than a week ago, however, Susan and I adopted a six-year-old tabby named Samantha, a "Second Chance Pet" who needed us as much as we needed her.  Beyond the immediate circumstances that led to her being in a foster home, we know very little about Samantha, but given the hard life she has led in recent months, we didn't have the heart to rename her.  She deserved to hang on to her own identity.

That being said, Susan and I have already given her several nicknames—Riley, Rita, and Zonkers, among others—but she will always be little Sam, who just might be the sweetest cat I have ever known.  But we have barely gotten to know each other.

Sweet little Samantha