Beauty * and * Bread

Most of the items I’ve kept over the years have sentimental value. Much as Nasreen and Farida think otherwise, there usually is a reason for every thing I hold on to . . . like the ancient dining room table in my Retrospectives. Or the Chinese vase and the Polish crystal bottle that my mother bought during our trip to the midwest back in 1979. That was the only long journey my mom, the girls and I ever took together.  Every time I look at either one of them, I think of my mom and that vacation.  Of course I don’t see them too often since both currently reside with Farida, along with many of my other possessions that I failed to take with me during my moves to Shevy’s, Carol’s and now my own abode. I did not do Farida or Jason any favors when they moved into this house–leaving way too many of my treasures for them to deal with.

Little by little Farida is returning things to me. A couple of weeks ago she shifted some blankets and pillows my way, including the Pendleton pillow that I was given during an Adopt-a-Native-Elder ceremony and the two wolf pillows that our Dineh friend Lillian gave us. Those really bring back memories, too.

Two treasures have stayed with me through my moves. This:

Czech Teapot - a Gift from our Opera at Oakhurst Czech Extravaganza

and this:

A pillow in honor of King Grey Eagle - as a remembrance of our 2010 Shakespeare at the Opera! He knew I am worried about the 20-year-old kid.

Both of these were given to me by Dr. James Keolker, who has facilitated ECCO’s annual Opera at Oakhurst program for the past 13 years. The 14th, coming up at the end of April 2011, will be his last. Although you’d never guess his age, he’s decided that it’s time to hang up the ECCO opera hat and move on to other endeavors, among them a chair at the prestigious Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco.

In August 2000, the opera program with Jim in charge was already a fixture. When Melva said, “Judi, I’d like you to take over opera,” I hadn’t the foggiest what she was talking about. At ECCO we kind of learn in a trial-by-fire scenario. If it needs to be done, you do it. Whatever IT is. If you don’t know, you’ll find out soon enough. Plunging toilets, bailing water out of flooded rooms, cutting snakes out of deer netting (I held the camera), planting flowers, raking leaves, herding swans. Whatever.

I didn’t work all that closely with Jim that first year. The whole thing was somewhat of a mystery to me, and–I’ll confess it now–I’m not much of an opera buff. I pulled stuff together as best I could. When Jim and I finally met in person, we discovered kindred spirits of sorts–both determined to give our guests the very best experience possible and willing to work as hard as necessary to achieve that goal.  I muddled through that first program, Jim gave his usual outstanding performance, and I discovered that I love working with him. He’s diligent, incredibly organized with an intense attention to detail–all those things I long to be and struggle to achieve.

By the time he arrived for the 2010 program, Shakespeare at the Opera!, he was already at least halfway through preparations for 2011–Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung.  Me? I’m always putting the finishing touches on a program seconds before the guests show up, and sometimes even after that.

In fact, Jim’s a huge reason why it’s taken me this long to move on from ECCO  to other endeavors. We’ve not only established a comfortable and seemingly successful working relationship., we’ve become great friends. I just couldn’t imagine not being a part of any ECCO program Jim Keolker presents. Now that he’s decided to leave, I can, too. It wasn’t an easy decision for either of us.

We email back and forth throughout the year about our lives, occasionally politics and even the upcoming opera program.

In a sea of conservatives, he shares my liberal leanings.

We also share a love of Tony Hillerman and things Native American. During the years I was making journeys to the Navajo reservation, he would often show up at ECCO for his annual program loaded with supplies for me to take to the elders.

He loves Glacier Point, but for as many years as I can remember, he’s never made it there during one of ECCO’s opera programs–because they always take place before the road opens.

He loves the mountains and the stars and has a cabin at a lake close to the Napa Valley where he can retire (well, go–I doubt he’ll ever retire) with his telescope to study the heavens.

Although I’ll miss working with him, I look forward to the opportunity of continuing the friendship we’ve forged over the last ten years. That will never change.

Although the “official” announcement of his withdrawal from the Opera at Oakhurst program has yet to be announced, I don’t think any of the attendees has discovered my blog, so the not-so-secret secret is safe until the letter goes in the mail later in September. A number of the participants have attended every year since the beginning. Newcomers often sign up as a result of Jim’s stellar reputation and the allure of his classes at Fromm. They come from across the country, and again in 2011 we’ll have guests from coast-to-coast.

The participants, too, have become friends as much as clients/guests, and we all look forward to catching up with each other once a year.

Jim qualifies as Hero No. 3 in my series of heroes.

Jim Keolker

So you may have guessed by now . . . my friends are the real treasures. No matter how near or far the physical distance is, we are always together.

I got a surprise this morning when I went to check my blog comments.

The usual is a line of spam a mile long. I watch for familiar names and approve them. Almost by rote I hit the “unapprove” button and move on with any I don’t recognize. My finger hovered, ready to trash the comment, when I realized that it not only wasn’t spam, it was proof that this blog can mean something to someone (besides me) and that a particular post sometimes reaches the right audience.

Here’s the comment, from Carie. It refers to this post.

• Mr Helling was my teacher way way back when, he taught the 5th grade at Roeding Elementary school. I will never ever forget the day he came to school as John Muir, we were all riveted by him. He was one of the only teachers who ever seemed to give a damn about us. He took us camping for a week in yosimite, he opened up a whole new world for us. He was and will always be my #1 hero, the man who cared enough to teach us, who cared enough to give of his time, who cared enough to give us a chance…best man ever

I’m not quite sure how Carie happened on this blog, but I’m glad she did. It gives me yet another chance to share with the world one of the people who has most inspired me.

Frank will be working with me next week, for maybe one of the last times as I transition to the full-time job at the Visitors Bureau. I hope he’ll continue to work for ECCO with whomever takes over the program coordinator position, and I hope I’ll be able to engage him for other activities in conjunction with my revised employment at the VB. In any case there’s no doubt that Frank and wife Patti will remain cherished friends.

Next week he’ll be portraying John Muir as he leads my Road Scholar group into the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. This is a place John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt camped together as they discussed how to preserve for all time the precious resource that is Yosemite. I won’t be going along, except in spirit, but I’m so thankful to be able to share another precious resource with a very lucky group of people.

You can see a photo of Frank here, portraying John Muir at one of ECCO’s Elderhostel (now Road Scholar) programs back in August 2005. The photo was taken by Pete Hoyle.

Penny, this one’s for you.

I regularly read some twenty blogs a day, including Penny’s. Not only do I stay caught up with what’s going on with friends old and new, but every once in a while a friend’s blog will jumpstart my own thoughts.

Penny’s had her share of challenges over the years, including the death of her beloved Larry six years ago. (How can it have been that long?)

She’s had hip replacements, and she’s been fraught with anxiety/panic attacks that kept her in her house for way too long. She’s done her best to overcome all those obstacles, and it’s been a one-day-at-a-time thing. Every time I haven’t heard about an anxiety attack for a while I think she’s finally kicked that bugaboo . . . and one shows up knocking on her door.

Despite all of that, she’s created a bucket list for herself. She’s not gonna give up on life, and she’s not going to let things get her down. She’s inspired me to do the same.

Thanks, Penny. I love you, too.

Don’t we all need a bucket list?

This will be a never-finished post, because I always want to have something more to look forward to. But here’s a start:

1.   I want to be in Alaska at either the start or the finish of the Iditarod.

2.  I want to see Denali (Mt McKinley).

3.  I want to stand on top of a mountain again.

4.  I want to see Mt Everest

Do you detect a pattern here?

***

On a different subject entirely, today (July 24) would have been my mother’s  101st birthday. She’s been gone now 21 years this past June 25. I’ve been trying to write a post about her since before June 25, and it’s just not coming out.   It’s not that I didn’t love my mother. I did. We didn’t get along awfully well (maybe because we were too much alike?), but we stuck together. Funny thing. For years after her death I would continue to think of things I “needed” to tell her–and then would realize that I couldn’t, at least not on this earthly plane. Our brains play funny tricks on us, don’t they?

Before she passed, she told me, “I hope you’ll make sure Farida and Nas get their share of the money I’m leaving, and I hope you’ll use yours to make a better life for yourself.”

I did, and I did.

My mother would never have wanted to live up here in the wilds of North Fork. She would have hated it, in fact. She couldn’t wait to get out of Vista when we lived there. (Just one more bone of contention between us–I always considered Vista my home and hated the move to San Gabriel.) But if it hadn’t been for my mom, I wouldn’t be where I am now–happy and enjoying life to the fullest. So I thank her every day for making this life possible. That’s what I was alluding to in this post.

The entry I just finished about Shevy was incredibly difficult, and thank heavens it’s done. Thank you for all your comments and your moral support. I feel that at long last I have said my goodbyes as they needed to be said, and I can move on.

John Muir claimed “hike” is a four-letter word, an action that should never be employed when exploring the Sierra Nevada. He asserted that one should “saunter” through this magic land so as to soak up all its marvels. The word “saunter” (pronounced in Muir’s Scottish brogue as “sawn-tear”) comes from the French for “sacred ground.”

That’s how John Muir saw Yosemite and his beloved Range of Light, and that’s how his alter ego, Frank Helling, views it as well.

By all rights Frank Helling should be my Hero No. 1.  After all, I met him first. And he introduced me to the first hero I shared with you, Diane Ganner. And, above all, he’s the one who inspired and influenced the name of this blog.

Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul. – John Muir

I’ve lived in the Sierra Nevada foothills for nearly 20 years, but it wasn’t until I met Frank–some 10 years ago–and listened to him become John Muir that I started to understand why Muir went into such paroxysms of ecstasy about this country. Frank and his alter ego have inspired me just as they have inspired a thousand others, including many participants in ECCO’s Exploritas (Elderhostel) programs. It’s been my honor to introduce him to our guests.

Frank showed up at ECCO’s office counter one afternoon not long after I’d begun working there and offered his services. “If you’ll give me the opportunity, I’d like to do my John Muir presentation for your Elderhostel participants. I won’t charge you, but if you like what you see perhaps you’ll have me back.”

That was the beginning of a long friendship, and I’ve never regretted giving Frank that first chance to show what he could do. Of course, by that time, he’d been doing John Muir long enough to have the impersonation down pat.

A teacher by profession, Frank developed his characterization of the founder of the Sierra Club over 25 years ago as a way to reach at-risk youth. He hoped that by displaying some of Muir’s enthusiasm to kids who had little love for anything but trouble he could reach into their souls and help them grab a little glimmer of hope. He wanted to change their lives. In doing so, he’s certainly changed his own. And mine.

Frank has retraced Muir’s footsteps throughout the Sierra Nevada, Alaska and the Southwest. Perhaps that’s part of the reason his performances are so believable. In portraying Muir, he has become Muir part-and-parcel.

In the beginning he grew his hair, donned a fake beard and dressed in Muir-style clothing scavenged from a thrift shop. On Muir’s birthday, April 21, he marched into his classroom and announced that Mr. Helling was ill and that he, John Muir, would be their teacher for the day. Although the presentation went very well, except that the beard fell off after 15 minutes, Frank assumed he’d be Muir only for that day. The next year, as the Sierra Club founder’s birthday approached, his students began to ask if they’d once again have a substitute. This time he came prepared with a beard of his own.

Those were the first of a series of performances that now probably number into the thousands, given the school presentations, the years he’s spent as a National Park ranger in Sequoia National Park and the many times he’s been asked to interpret Muir at the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez, CA, and Muir Woods, north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

He has met most of Muir’s living relatives and performed for them. He even journeyed up into the mountains to meet up with great-grandson Michael Muir as part of Muir’s Access Adventure program for individuals with disabilities, where he ambled into a campfire and took a seat on the log as Michael’s grandfather.

His latest coup was the 2009 invitation to be John Muir at the Theodore Roosevelt National Historic Site in New York. In order to make this date, he had to beg off one of my Elderhostel programs.

How could I possibly deny him that opportunity?

I love to hike with Frank. It’s like hiking with Muir himself. He’s never met a flower he didn’t like. He knows them all, as well as the fauna.  Have you ever heard of an ant lion? I hadn’t either, until I took a walk with Frank out on ECCO’s north 40. There I also met Pearly Everlasting and varieties of Chapparal that inhabit our area.

That was a walk in the park compared to some hikes he’s done. Before Frank retired from teaching, he would make an annual trek with the 8th grade class to the top of Half Dome and back, camping overnight in Little Yosemite Valley.

He’s also hiked throughout Sequoia/Kings Canyon but ended up sidelined for a season after he and his ankle suffered a falling-out during a trip to Grand Staircase Escalante with his wife Patti. The lengthy recuperation period after Patti finally persuaded him to consult a doctor, who mandated surgery to put everything back in place, was a challenge for both of them.

They were childhood friends who married others and went separate ways. They reunited again after their marriages ended and have been together ever since.

I know the ankle injury is not the first challenge Patti has encountered with Frank. He’s made me promise never to bring up the subject of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in her presence.

So I haven’t.

It never fails. When Diane calls me, she says, “this is Diane.” She can hear me pondering which Diane. “You know, the Bird Lady,” she tells me.

“Oh, THAT Diane!”

Diane Ganner is one of the reasons I am privileged to coordinate Exploritas programs for ECCO. She’s the first subject in a new series of posts under the category of “heroes.” She’d be the last to call herself a hero, and she’ll take exception when she sees this entry, but the title stands.

Diane is one of most fascinating people I know. She’s heavily into Walt Disney paraphernalia and grandchildren and has a plethora of both. Her house is decorated Disney-style, and I’ve never seen her without a Mickey, Minnie or Tinker Bell tee shirt. She is effervescence personified, that’s partly why her story amazes me so.

She says when she began the journey she’s on now she was so shy she’d hide behind Steven, her husband, afraid to speak, afraid to show her face. She is also dyslexic, so reading and spelling have been real challenges throughout her life. She’s had some serious health issues during the six or so years I’ve known her, so the fact that she is able to do what she does is phenomenal. Let’s face it. Diane is incredible.

Diane is a wildlife rehabber of birds of prey. Diane takes them into her home, under the auspices of Fresno Wildlife Rehabilitation, cares for them and takes them on educational excursions to schools and other presentations. Most of the animals FWR takes in are cared for with minimal human contact and eventually released back into the wild. The animals who live with Diane are so severely injured or otherwise unable to fend for themselves outside of captivity that they can never be released.

I met her through another of my heroes, Frank Helling. (Frank will be appearing, as John Muir, in my second Heroes post in the near future.) Frank called me up and said, “You told me you’re looking for someone to give bird of prey presentations at ECCO. I have a name and number for you.”

I wasted no time in calling her, and she immediately agreed to bring her current stock of exhibition birds to my next Elderhostel. Although I wanted this presentation for my guests, I wanted it for me, too. Raptors, in particular the Red-Tail Hawk, have been my “totem animal.” They have played a great part in my life and inhabit a very special place in my heart. The first time we met, Diane recognized that bond, and we became instant friends. Diane is part Cherokee and Choctaw, and we have discussed at some length my affinity to Native American culture.

She travels with a Red-tailed Hawk, a Great-Horned Owl, a Barn Owl, a Screech Owl and a Burrowing Owl. On occasion she’s brought along a Peregrine Falcon, as well. Make no mistake about it. Although these birds live with her and know her well, they are not tame. Diane’s husband has seen the wounds they have inflicted on her, and he refuses to handle them. He will help as he can to help her load the birds for her presentations, but that’s as far as it goes.

As Diane began to take the birds out to schools and to presentations as part of her job as a Forest Ranger in Sequoia National Monument, she gradually lost her paralyzing shyness. She claims the birds are her saviors and her mission. Her own “rehabilitation” has come so far that she has developed living history presentations to go along with the bird talks. She appears as Mama Bear, Mother Nature and Wanda Muir, the elder daughter of John. It’s my dream to have John and Wanda appear together at one of my Explokritas (Elderhostel) programs. I’m working on it.

Diane Ganner with Eragon

Diane’s career as a rehabber had an inauspicious, even illegal, beginning. While at work as a ranger in Sequoia National Monument, she discovered an injured fawn. Although she knew that transporting or keeping a wild animal is against the law, she couldn’t leave it. She picked it up, brought it home and attempted to nurse it back to health. Unfortunately the fawn died.

The next day Diane had a doctor’s appointment. The receptionist noticed that Diane was much quieter than usual.

“What’s wrong?” Cathy asked her, putting her hand on Diane’s arm.

“I . . . I killed Bambi.” She burst into the tears she’d been holding back. She blurted out her story then blubbered. “And now I’m going to jail!”

Cathy shook her head. “No, you’re not, Diane. I own Fresno Wildlife Rehabilitation, and I can guarantee you’re not going to jail, and you’ll never have to go through this again.”

Since then she’s cared for a huge number of mammals and birds. She’s even had to sneak a deer into her bed . . . after Steven had fallen asleep. But her loves are the birds of prey who live in her back yard–and her house.

On January 2, 2008, Diane called me. She was crying. “Jason died yesterday.” Jason was the Red-Tail who’d lived with her for years. He’d apparently been frightened by people passing by her yard. I cried with her because I’d grown very attached to Jason, as well. Although Jason could never be replaced, another Red-Tail came to live with

Eragon, the Red-Tailed Hawk

Diane a few months later. His name is Eragon. He was only 3 months old at the time, so Diane has become his mother. She says he even preens her as if she were another bird. He lives in her doll room and is a member of the family (although Diane is the only one who handles him). He’s the only one of Diane’s charges who currently inhabits her house.

Another of her birds is Max the Great-Horned Owl. At least he was Max until after about 7 years with Diane, Max laid a series of eggs. Max is now Maxine. (Maxine fell in love with a wild Great-Horned but was never outside her cage, so the eggs were not fertilized.)

My other favorite of Diane’s birds is Icarus, a female screech owl. Icarus is a bird with an attitude–which Diane says is common to female birds of prey–which is what earned Icarus her nickname. Icky. When Icky comes along, guests can hear her all the way up in Lyles Dining Hall.

I’d like to think we give a little back to Diane, too, although she flatly refuses to accept even gas money for her travel from her home in Clovis up to Oakhurst. We make a contribution to Fresno Wildlife Rehabilitation each time she appears, but it’s nowhere close to what she merits.

Even though she may be hurting, even though she may be bone-weary, she never misses a presentation for ECCO, and she never refuses to appear. “You guys keep me going,” she tells me. “You lift my spirits, and I love your guests.”

I love you, too, Diane. You’ll never know how much.