Sense_of_Place – Stone Fig

A New Roof

It is a rather low hill, but I navigate my car up the steep one-lane road. I am driving up to one of the trails in the Manassas National Battlefield Park. It has been several years since I have been out to this particular area of the Park. The last time was before Covid.

As I approach the top of the hill, I blow my horn several times. The road goes up and over a ‘blind’ crest, and you cannot see any oncoming traffic until you are both cresting the rise from opposite directions. I want to give anyone coming towards me ample warning.

In the times I have been out here, I have only met one other car at the crest, and it was a close call. So I always blow my horn two or three times as my car climbs to the top.

No other car was coming, but as I drive down the far side I can see there is a car parked in the area of the trailhead. I am surprised to see it and wonder if I will meet the other hikers on the trail. As it was late in the day I know I might as they may be on their way back to their car.

I park my car, and as I get out I am met by the singing of the woodland birds. I recognized the Cardinal easily. I also pick out the Rufus-sided Towee as he calls out ‘drink-your-tea’. The other bird’s songs add to my enjoyment. Several trails go from the parking area out into the open fields that the current contract farmers cut for hay during the year. The first crop of tall grasses has not come up yet, and the broad paths across the fields lay open up to and beyond the location of the ‘lost-and-now-gone’ Portici farm house.

I stand for a moment in the shade of the trees which are just beginning to leaf. As I look up into the afternoon sky a spring breeze ruffles the red and green leaflets that have popped on the oaks and beech trees that cover the area. In the canopy I can see the shadows and shapes of the birds flying among the trees.

As I look towards the fields I am surprised to see the long-cut lumber of a new roof.

What could have been built here and why?

Just beyond the split rail fence and the tangle of vines at the edge of the trees is a small structure. I see the long boards rising above the peak of the roof. The structure is a chinked-log structure which would have been common for rural farm structures until the early 1900s.

To tell the truth during my days as a surveyor in North Carolina I would often come across old log structures out in the woods. They were generally storage sheds for an old and now-disappeared farm. One or two were old tobacco drying barns.

Given the location of this structure, I believe it is supposed to be a re-creation of an era “Spring House.” A Spring House was a small building that was built over or close to a spring of water that bubbled up from the ground. There are a lot of springs in this area of Virginia. The springs often rise as ‘artesian springs’ due to a natural dip of the land below the ground-water level or a “seep” on the side of a hill. In the Spring House the farmer and his family would dig a shallow pit (1 to 2 feet deep) and line it with stone.

Water would collect in the pit and was then allowed to flow out and down the hill to a stream. This would allow the pit to always be full of water. The water just having come out of the ground would be cold, and it would keep the inside of the small structure nice and cool. The farmer would build a shelf of stones in the pit so he and his family could put jugs and jars of milk and cheese and other foods in there to keep it cool and fresh. They might also have built wooden shelves on the walls for preserved fruit and vegetables. The family may have hung meat in the Spring House so it would last longer. It was like a refrigerator.

I am glad to find this new addition to the farming history of the Manassas Battlefield. The Park continues to develop the full story of the men and women who lived there and were witness to the terrible events of two Civil War battles.

The old cemeteries, foundations, trash pits, ponds, old farm equipment (after the Civil War) speak to this farming history. And there are old farm roads – wagon-width – deep in some of the woods.

I start my evening walk toward the old farm cemetery. The sun will set soon. I see the other walkers coming down one of the other paths and heading back to their car. I give them a wave and start my walk up the hill to the cemetery. If they waved back, I did not see them.

A Green Turn

When I pulled this picture out from the stack I thought of where it was and then chuckled.

I was looking at a Green Turn. There is a Green Heron, a Great Blue, and a Yellow Warbler, but there is no Green Tern. Although I know a pond not far from this picture of Chinn Ridge where in Summer I can see a Green Heron fly over. He is as much russet and brown as green. He is an exciting bird, although not as big as the Great Blue Heron.

Here on Chinn Ridge, at the Manassas National Battlefield Park, the path takes a decided turn.

The path goes in straight stretches through low lying areas along the top of the ridge There are Paw-Paw trees (Asimina triloba) to be found in the area of scrub trees, their roots climbing over exposed stone. But as the path slopes gently upward toward a high point on it crest, the understory clears and the large, more magnificent trees reach upward. The Oaks and Tulip Poplars compete as they reach for the sun and their leaves form a shady canopy high over the path.

This picture was taken on a calm, grey Spring day as the trees were first leafing against the sky. Today , in mid-September, the sun streams out of the cloudless sky but underneath as I walk the turn in the path I am shaded by the thick green canopy high overhead. Today is the hottest day of the year. The temperature is 97degrees, and the humidity pushes it higher.

It will only be a short walk today. I may reach this half-mile point in the woods or I might turn back before then. But if I reach this green turn, I know I will feel that I am in a familiar place. I have walked out of the ordinary into a place that is super-ordinary. When I look into the woods, it is open, but in the distance as the ridge falls away it is dark. The leaves move in the slight breeze, and I can see shapes far below me. They move among the trunks of the younger hardwoods, but they seem to stop and linger behind the trunks of the older giants. I know from other walks that where the bottom stream flows there are Sycamores, and the Sun’s reflection is glaring off the stream as it ripples and flows into the far woods and towards the Bay and on down to the ocean.

The water that the stream carries has flowed in and around the roots of the Oak and the Poplar and the Ash and past the Paw-Paw and down beyond the Sycamores.

Soon in the Fall the Paw-Paw ‘apples’ will be mottled and ripe, and I will take one, and say thank you, and turn back to a more real but less green world.

A New Other Place

How new is this place? And do I have a sense of it?

It is not often that I have started these posts with a question. But it seems right at this time.

And I need to ask another question first. What is Sense of Place?

There is discussion within the architectural community of whether a person can design an edifice so that it has sense of place. I believe there is, but as you will notice I have written that use of sense of place in lower case letters.

I believe that sense of place can be designed and built into many things; a memorial like the Vietnam Memorial; The National Cathedral in Washington DC, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, Stonehenge in England. These man-made constructions make a statement, and it is in that statement that the edifice can have a sense of place.

But what about Sense of Place (using capital letters)? I believe that this is a person’s inner feeling that draws them into having a strong personal attachment for any location that “moves” them.

I spent several years studying this concept and wrote my dissertation for my PhD on this concept, but was I able to give a definition that envelopes all the feelings that any person who comes to a place might have – or that all the people have?

At the Vietnam Memorial I believe there is a sense of place in the edifice, as people know where they are and what it was built to represent. It is space, set apart by this nation , and hallowed, dedicated to the men and women who died during the Vietnam War. For me, and I imagine many others, I have Sense of Place at the Memorial, the Wall. It is as much a monument to my mother and father as it is to my brother. I can walk along and read the names of my friends, and people I knew, and my brother, and I am personally moved. I might not have the same feeling anywhere else. It is my feeling; it is different from that of everyone else that walks past and reads their brother’s name or a friend’s name on the wall. We all have a strong feeling, and we respect each other’s attendance at this hallowed ground, but the individual Sense of Place is all mine. I might come in the early morning and play my flute. But that is my response to the place. Others may come, but it is different, with different emotions and different memories. And the sense of place designed into the edifice resonates with and adds to my personal Sense of Place.

And there are many other places that I have – and I imagine that everyone else has – a personal Sense of Place. The woodland trails that I sing on. The roads that I drive. The house that I drive up to. The room in the house where we played. No architect designed the space so it would be memorable. But my memories of that room and that window and of the events that happened there and the sounds coming up from downstairs, they all add up to my Sense of Place for that room.

But what of a new place? My family and I drove out to a farm and vineyard in the high foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. We had never been there before. We were looking forward to being in a new place and looking at a different view and having different thoughts.

We drove up the winding road to the top of the hill. We walked across the gravel parking lot. We went inside and ordered something to drink. We stepped out onto the patio. My world was changed forever.

I had seen these mountains before. I had driven through this valley often. I had climbed to the top of Old Rag and hiked the open trails of Sky Meadow and looked out over these same lands. I have memories of each of these places, some alone and some with friends. On Old Rag, once I met a large black bear at twilight – and that certainly gave me a Sense of Place. I was alone – and so was he.

But now I have this new place. It was a beautiful Fall day. We had lunch, and we talked, and we laughed and took pictures. And when we walked back to the car each of had our own memories of the valley and a fresh “Sense of Place” tied to each other and our memories of the new place.

Picture taken from the plaza at Dirt Farm Brewery in Bluemont, Virginia. The terrace has a terrific view of the Loudon Valley in the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Website: Home – Dirt Farm Brewing

Return for the Swifts

Two years ago (Fire Swifts, 3 July 2020) I wrote about enjoying the flight of Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica) while I sat on my back patio. In summer mornings and evenings I could see a flight of ten to twenty Swifts gliding above my house and over the close-at-hand stand of trees as they sought and caught flying insects that lived in the trees, under the leaves, on the branches and trunks. The Swifts also gobbled up the mosquitoes that liked to breed in the ponds along the stream beneath the trees.

But now the Swifts are mostly gone. Sometimes when I am working in my yard I might hear twittering in he sky. I look up and might see three to five Swifts overhead.

Have I noticed a change in the number of insects I have to swat or other troublesome flying insects? Not so much, but maybe there are more gnats this year than in others.

Where did the Swifts go? I have no idea. But I hope they found a place to their liking and have not just become part of the 5 billion songbirds that we lost since 1970. That comes to a false number average of 60 million birds lost in each of those years. If we were to think of birds as people that is Nine Times the population of the United States lost each year. Now it sounds like a big number.

There are numerous factors that are leading to a decline in the number of songbirds in the United States. These factors include: tall buildings – birds crash into them during their migrations; feral cats – put out of the house at night kill millions of song birds each year; diseases – some of which are suspected of becoming more prevalent due to the warming climate; and habitat destruction – when our towns and cities and suburbs are changed to accommodate our expanding population.

I believe the main reason that I do not see my Chimney Swifts wheeling overhead in the early morning and at twilight is because of habitat destruction.

Was there some forest that was cut down in my neighborhood? No; the last large tract of timbered grazing area in my town was destroyed and filled with houses in the 1990s. Swifts might live in hollowed out trees that happened to stand in an old forest.

Audubon tells a story of when we was cataloguing and painting the birds of North America of finding a tall, hollowed out sycamore tree in Kentucky. He stepped inside and found it filled with Chimney Swifts which had made nests on the interior walls of their “chimney”.

My Swifts had no such palatial home as I believe they nested in an old brick chimney of a boiler/heater for a small hotel on the highway near my house. When the motel was torn down to make way for a gas station and store, the chimney was torn down. This was the same time that my Swifts disappeared. I have made the assumption that the Swifts nested in the old chimney.

Is there a way to bring the Swifts back to the area of my neighborhood?

I think there is.

A quick search of the internet (searching “Swift Tower”) turns up initiatives by individuals, groups and communities to maintain a healthy and helpful population of the insect-eating Swifts. The individuals and groups do not build free standing brick chimneys. They build stand alone “Swift Towers”. Several State Audubon societies have articles on building Swift Towers on both private and public lands. There are links on these pages to other organizations as well, including designs for the towers. As one article states, if you are asked what you are building, just tell them it’s a bird house.

And what of my small population of Swifts. I will approach the company that is building the gas station, and tell them the story of my neighborhood Swifts. And I will ask them if they would build a Swift Tower to replace the old chimney.

And for my City I plan to attend a council meeting and ask that they consider requesting that any companies that are tearing down old establishments that have chimneys to replace that chimney with a Swift Tower.

I think the twittering I hear in the mornings and evenings is worth that little bit of effort.

Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania (ASWP) is supporting Chimney Swift protection through a variety of approaches. We have installed nearly 150 Chimney Swift towers to provide breeding habitats for these birds. Audubon’s Chimney Swift Tower Program | Audubon Society of Western PA (aswp.org)

John James Audubon’s experience in visiting a large dead sycamore tree filled with the nests of Chimney Swifts is provided at American Swift | John James Audubon’s Birds of America. He estimated their number to be 9,000.

To read more information about the decline of our songbird population see the 2019 study as published in Science magazine. It may be found at – Nearly 3 Billion Birds Gone | Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Where Have the Songbirds Gone? | NASA Applied Sciences

Ride in Death Valley

I have alluded in several posts that I traveled for my work. I was an engineer in the federal government and served several agencies. My work usually involved environmental compliance and land/real estate management for those agencies. My work often took me to California and New Mexico. When I would go out to the west coast which was generally once a year, I would usually stay at least a week and sometimes two in order to meet with personnel from the several installations that I had cognizance or purview over.

My agenda for a two-week trip included visits and discussions with installations in San Diego, Los Angeles, a large installation in the California desert. This desert installation was close to Death Valley and as I had to drive up to Los Angeles for my next site visit, on the Saturday I was traveling I decided to drive up the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and see what there was to see. This route took me past Death Valley. I had never seen it, so I decided to make a stop and see it.

I started driving north on CA-395. This was all strange territory to me not only being from the east coast, but it was the rocks, the shapes, the plants, and the different birds that intrigued me. As I drove north, I came to a place called the Alabama Hills. The formations looked like giant stones had been dumped out onto the ground. The tumbled formations of rocks were intriguing. I found a place to park and climbed on the rocks while looking for the fish-filled brooks and pools that the signs implied were round there. The hills of stone looked like an old movie set, and were actually used in numerous westerns since the formations were so striking.

I left the Alabama Hills and continued north on CA-395. Soon I was in a dust storm as the wind was blowing in from the east across what I learned was Owen’s Dry Lake. At one time it had been a fresh water lake feed by the Owens River. The Owens River was used to support agriculture in the valley, and later it was diverted to supply Los Angeles with water. I stopped and looked out over the sandy flats that had once been covered in water. The alkali dust drove me back into my car.

The next road to the east, in the direction of the dry lake bed, had a sign that said to me, Turn here for Death Valley. Who had not heard of that tortuous place? We had played cowboys back in the east and roamed an imaginary Death Valley. From countless Saturday matinees we knew it as the driest and the hottest place the United States, if not the entire planet.

I followed the road to the east, not knowing what I might find. The road, CA-190, draped around the east side of the dry lake. I stopped on that far side and got out of my car to look at it again. I could see more now as the wind was blowing at my back. The dust was no longer blowing into my face as it had been at my first stop. I drove on toward Death Valley. And now, about every mile or so, I saw a car pulled to the opposite side of the road with a bicycle rack on top. As I saw more and more of these cars I realized there was probably a bike rally or a race going on.

On the south side of CA-109 I saw the crest of a volcanic dike or a collapsed volcanic lava tube now exposed and weathered. I stopped and walked along one. It looked like a great place for rattlesnakes and scorpions, so I kept a respectful distance. I set up my camera tripod and took several pictures to send to Geology professor including the self-portrait above. Then I packed my camera gear and continued on my way.

By the time I reached Father Crowley Point, I had seen a dozen cars with bike racks along the road. At the parking lot for Father Crowley Overlook there were several more parked. I stopped to ask what was going on.

I was told yes, there was a bike race. It was the famed and feared Whitney Classic. This race starts at Badwater Basin on the east side of Death Valley. The course crosses the Valley and then ascends on the road I was on to the top of the Darwin Plateau, and on past Owens Dry Lake. The race continues into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and then climbs to the Whitney Portals. The race is 136 miles long and includes an elevation rise 14,704 feet, nearly a 3-mile gain in elevation.

My plan to visit the floor of Death Valley was breaking down. I had to be in Los Angeles that night for a business meeting the following day. We would work the weekend when I got there. But I started my descent into Death Valley. As I went down I began to see the lead groups of bikers passing me as they went up the road. I realized that I would likely get stuck behind larger groups of racers who were following the leaders. If I got behind them, they would slow down or block my exit from the park. It could cost me hours of lost time. I found a wide spot in the road and turned around to go back to the top of the plateau.

The Wilson Classic is an endurance bike race. I was glad to have seen the edges of it. And I was glad to have glimpsed Death Valley from the height of Father Crowley Point. And I had gotten out and marveled at the lava dike which was only a part a small part of this tortuous and wonderous terrain. Perhaps on my next trip I will go up to the verdant forests of the Whitney Portals and listen to the babble of Lone Pine Creek.

Death Valley as seen from the area of he Father Crowley Overlook; photo by Daniel Perez posted to Google Earth.

Three Photographs

What do three photographs have to do with each other. These three have no people in them, at least none that you can see. But in each of these photographs I can see multitudes of friends and fellow travelers. I want to rehabilitate that term. It a good phrase in which to capture the idea of someone well-met while you are on the road.

The term, fellow travelers, in its best use is when I apply it to the young and old, and the men and women I met while backpacking in Europe and when driving across America around the time I took these three pictures.

In Europe most of our travel was by train and we would meet and link up with a small group of people, two others, maybe four, and travel with them for a day or two or maybe a week. They were our traveling companions. They might not be going to our ultimate destination, but for the moment – or for the week – we were thrown together in a train car or in a City – and we talked and planned and laughed as the woods and houses and fields flashed by or as we strolled in a city park.

And if they were well-met, they were lively and jovial, and we wanted also to be a “Hail-fellow, Well-met”. You would share your lunch of tomatoes and cheese and bread, and they would add sausage and at the end perhaps a cigarette. You might go drinking together at night, and later stand on a street corner and rather loudly sing some song you just learned. You may sit up the night in a train compartment talking of places you’ve been and places you intend to go. And they would rise and fall with their own ideas, and the next day with a hearty handshake and a slap on the back or maybe a kiss you would part never to see each other again. But later, telling the story of that train ride you remember your adventures, and wonder when you will have a chance to smoke the cigar they had given you.

It was someone with whom to spend some time when you were on a trip abroad, alone. Cigarettes play a role in this picture, but I will say there is no more deadly habit. If you smoke, stop now and never take it up again. Ask me why I had 5 bypasses. I will tell you it was the cigarettes. It was part of my old life. It is not part of my new life. And it does not need to be part of yours.

These three pictures represent the time when I was driving across country as a young man to go to Vietnam. I was not in the jungle, I served off the coast in the Navy. Later I would go and wander across northern and eastern Europe for a Summer. The pictures are before that time when I was driving West across the Untied States. The middle picture shows that, an open road. I probably took that somewhere in Oklahoma when there were hills in the distance and places that I had never been and would only pass through this once. I stopped and went to a small diner and had corned beef on rye, and I wrote about it.

The old “farm” house back home was torn down and rebuilt closer to the River. That’s on the right. Times there are not forgotten. Christmases. Trees with tinsel. Fruit baskets. Summers spent crabbing and rowing on the River. And we would wade out through the now gone fields of ell-grass, and swim.

The picture on the left is Hawaii when my ship passed through. I had time to see Hanauma Bay before it was crowded with other people who wanted to see that bit of paradise. I wonder if the Parrotfish I followed knew this or if its descendants know it now. I swam out on a calm afternoon over the reef and looked down the far side where dwell the Octopus and the needle toothed Shark. And I swam back with the image of the darkness where the light did not penetrate.

So go out. Travel, and rejoice in your adventures with the people that you will meet.

Young Man/Old Man

The tree has stood here for generations. Its wrinkled features speak of Springs and hot Summers and Winter storms and Fall Hurricanes rolling out of the Sea.

Yet here it stands. Right where the mountain man had stopped over 300 years before, and leaning on his staff he paused to look out to the Sea beyond the valley – and he has stayed here – still thinking. His hand clutches the shaft of his staff. You can see his fingertips curling around from the back of the shaft as he rests his temple against his hand. His hair is blown upwards and back as he stares stonily out towards the distant Sea.

The years have washed soil and stones and leaves out of the hills above so that the man’s shoulders and torso and hips and legs are now buried deep below. Yet still he stands and looks outward and wonders. When he decides, will he rise up and tear his roots from deep within the earth and walk these hills again?

These are tales of the deep woods.

The young man pushed out by his tribe,

Walked toward the sound of the Sea.

He crossed mountain peak and fast glacial stream.

He forded broad rivers.

He climbed stones as if they were steps to the top of the ridge.

And from his new vantage point he could see the great Sea before him.

He leaned his head on his staff and he wept, because he had found Ocean, his mother.

What would he say to her when she saw him and rose up? Would she be in a fury? Would she rejoice that he had found his way back to her?

He leaned on his staff, for a year, and another, and another ten and then a hundred and then more.

He stands there still wondering how he will be greeted when he reaches the rolling wave and the murmur of shale rolling in the retreating wave.

What will he say that he has accomplished? Who will he say that he has helped? Has he made his path a better place? Has the world benefited from his life?

He leaps up and leaves his body behind, still, standing, staring.

His spirit goes out and back along his path to correct what he has damaged.

When he sees a tired person sitting next to the road, the wind blows down and refreshes the weary. The rain falls upon the parched . The sun shines on the lonely.

The young man in the wind and rain and sunshine is rebuilding his story.

And he will smile.

One day he will return to this tree and shake loose the binding roots and finish his walk to the Sea and be greeted with joy.

This is one of the trees that I remember. There are many others. These are the trees I see while I am in the woods. They speak to me as the warm spring rains patter down on their budding branches. When the Summer storm whips the limbs and branches, they howl with strength. When the Winter winds bring snow and ice that crackles on the branches when the sun returns and when I cross the snowy field to visit them, they moan and creak like an old gate on rusted hinges.. The trees are always with me, they are everywhere. They are of many ages, and they always welcome me to the deep forest and woods by the lane.

Some have forgotten how to leaf and bud and leaf, but still stand as a home for birds and squirrels and the members of the fourth kingdom, the fungus that returns the tree to the soil. Some have fallen in the wind. Some have fallen to the ax. But they all live on in my memory and in the memory of all who visited them and touched their bark, or played in their shade, or picked up their Fall leaf form the ground. Or watched a bird fly among its branches.

They are our friends. Each has its story. You must listen to hear it being told.

Newport – Learning to Walk

I apologize for being absent for these several weeks. I was in the middle of a big project for Christmas. And yesterday as I finished the writing portion – you can tell that I am late as Christmas has come and gone.– I asked myself, What should I write in my blog?

As I thought on that I realized that recently I have spent a lot of time burrowing through family pictures. It brought back so many places and people and experiences, and in many of them grand hikes and walks. So – light bulb – my question had an obvious answer, Write about what I know. I have often been told that these are words to live by if you are going to do any kind of creative writing.

I decided to go back to the root. I am looking back to some of the earliest walks and hikes that I remember. I remember, as a toddler, scenes from wanderings out of my yard and stumbles along the sidewalk, but I want to think back to when my Father said, Let’s go outside and go for a walk. My brother and I would rush to our rooms and get dressed in weather appropriate items. In Newport, Rhode Island it could be yellow slicker and goulashes for rain, heavy winter coats with fuzzy collars and gloves and scarves and fuzzy hats if it was Winter. But if it was Summer, we would go out in short sleeves and tennis shoes.

Just saying that makes me think of the sun- drenched rocks along that shore of Rhode Island. And in Newport the coast and trails along it are accessible to everyone. But it is not always a public park. It is more often a path on private property. Perhaps originally a wandering sheep trail along the edges of the outer fences. But as the Cliff Walk website states, “the walk is a public right-of-way over private property owned by the waterfront property owners”.

So as on any trail whether it be publicly owned or privately owned, always be courteous and as the saying goes, Leave only foot prints and take only pictures. In the instance of Newport’s Cliff Walk stay on the path. It is not polite, nor is it legal, to wander across another person’s private property.

Today much of the Cliff Walk is paved – but it is dangerous. Do not venture off the path; you may fall to your death.

But “back in the day” in the 1950s, when I was young, the walk was at best semi-paved. And it was along this muddy, and smooth-rock, slippery trail that I learned to “walk-out”. I of course was an accomplished walker, already being 5-years old. But on those trails along the rugged coast of Rhode Island, I learned how to watch where I was stepping. I learned how to set my foot for traction, how to avoid the stone that was covered in sand and pebbles as it sand grains can be as slippery as wet moss. I was taught by being guided, by example, the little skills of walking a wilderness, a semi-wilderness, or a rough trail through a city park. Your feet are your guides. You can tell from your first placement whether you position is firm or if it is a risky-one.

These skills were learned from walking-out with my Mother and Father and Brother. And from them I learned of the joy of a walking stick, which my own children and I often refer to as a “pokey” stick. It gives you balance and support in the hard places. And you can turn over small rocks to look underneath using it as a lever.

The joys of the path will be with you forever. And a sturdy stick and whatever else gives you support and makes you steady is worth holding on to.

So much to learn but so easy to remember. Watch where you put your feet. Make sure you are steady on the trail. And be courteous to the people and the plants and animals who you may meet on your way since it may be their home.

Information on Newport’s Cliff Walk may be found at, www.cliffwalk.com.

Petroglyph Trail

It was 1993. We went out west to see the land and the National Parks. We traveled in the arc of the states of the Four Corners; New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona.

Our first stop was Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. We wanted to see the magnificent remains of the cliff houses built by Native Americans centuries before.

But 700 years after they built the cliff house, they left them. The community was not destroyed by fire or earthquake, but something happened, and the People left. Other People known as the Pueblo Indians came hundreds of years after the original inhabitants had left. The Pueblo Indians called the builders of the cliff houses the Ancient Ones, the Anasazi.

The Anasazi had lived on these mesas for nearly a thousand years, from approximately 600 C.E. (Common Era, after the birth of Christ) to 1300 C.E.). Then, suddenly, they had left their homes, their places of ceremony, their work, their pottery, and they had gone. It is surmised that perhaps the cause was a change in the climate that made the crops fail. Several theories have arisen, but it is generally felt that their descendants are the modern day Pueblo Indians.

When we visited the ruins of the cliff houses, we had a fascinating experience. We were able to tour some of the ancient homes and see their construction. We climbed ladders. We entered rebuilt pit houses. We hiked trails. But it always seemed that we were with a rather sizable group. And we did not see much in the way of wildlife. I would see some Mule Deer when I would go out in the early morning for a walk at sunrise. But other than that and the occasional bird heard up in the trees, it seemed as if we humans were alone on Mesa Verde.

My son, a young outdoorsman, felt the same way. He and I wanted to get on a trail that was not so heavily traveled so we might see what we might see. His interest lay in snakes. Mine did not.

We stopped at the Visitors’ Center and asked the Ranger where we might go for a hike where it was not so crowded. We thought perhaps in the forests along the rim of the mesa. We were told that at that time of day the Petroglyph Trail was usually not crowded.

We made sure we had water with us. And as always, I carried a trail map so we would know where we were. And we set off.

We quickly moved from the trail head into the pine forest that then covered much of the park. It was a well-marked trail. There were some tight spaces and steep climbs up hewn stone steps, but it was very enjoyable. The trail was about 700 feet above the canyon floor.

The trail wandered along the side of the mesa about 100 feet below its top. From our map I could tell that we had covered a good part of the trail and were approaching an area that looked out over the lower portions of the park. Near the end of the mesa, the canyon widened to meet another canyon. We would have a good view out across the canyons.

The trail had been rocky, and as we neared this point I was focused on the trail in front of me. If it hadn’t been for the sign, we might have walked right past the petroglyph panel. The sign said, “Do Not Touch”.

Touch what I thought? But it caused me to stop and look up. The petroglyphs we were looking for were high above the sign, well above the level of my head. The Petroglyphs were inscribed in the sheet of stone that formed the side of the mesa. The Petroglyphs were in good condition.

The height of the inscribed figures above the trail has doubtlessly protected the panel from damage as they are out of the reach of curious hands. The Petroglyphs were plain to see and included animals, hand prints, human shapes, and geometric designs. However, their meaning, implied by the ancient carvers, is lost in time. One circle did catch my eye as the possible cycle of the moon with the new moon hidden from view behind a mesa jutting high into the night sky.

As we walked back, we talked of the possible meaning of the glyphs and why and when they might have been carved. We talked of how some of the mysterious glyphs may have been carved by an ancient man who walked out to the point of the mesa with his son to read the messages left from before his time. Perhaps they carved a message of their own.

Our return trail crossed the top of the mesa. Before we reached the trailhead, we saw a whip-tail lizard dart across the surface of the rocks. Perhaps he was looking a bug for his dinner. He was in a hurry, so he did not become dinner for a watchful hawk.

And on this hike, no snakes.

Information on Mesa Verde National Park including trail maps can be found at https://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm .

South Works

I took this picture in the early 1970s when I worked for a friend of mine as a Cargo Surveyor in the ports around Chicago, Illinois.

It was long days and hard work. But I was able to be outside most of the time. If I was not outside, on the deck of a ship, climbing up or down the 90-foot ladders that led to and from the ship’s holds, or walking the huge outdoor storage lots confirming off-loading of the giant rolls of steel, I might be inside a steel manufacturing facility, or a cheese importer in one of the Chicago suburbs, or in a warehouse full of imported items. It didn’t matter if it was hard work; it was fun and fascinating work. The ships on which we oversaw the unloading were from nations around the world.

We were up early and on the ships watching the longshoremen and the huge cranes unloading the rolls of sheet steel, bundles of steel beams, or railroad wheels, or 40-foot containers filled with wine or cheese or beef hides or any number of amazing products that were being imported into the Chicago from around the world. These good would be transported for sale in the Chicago area or to other locations in the Midwest.

We worked while the Great Lakes were open for shipping. We worked in the heat of summer and the frigid days of early winter with ice on the decks and snow in the air. The only weather that we did not work in was the rain. When it rained the owners would close the massive steel covers over the ship’s holds so the cargo would not get wet. Steel rusts. Cardboard falls apart. Food stuffs spoil. All of this had to be taken into account as we oversaw the work and inspected the cargoes, usually working for the owners of the shipping line.

The Great Lakes are open for international ocean cargo shipping as long as the locks along the Saint Lawrence River Seaway are ice free. The locks are the portal for ocean going shipping on the Great Lakes. The locks were scheduled to close before they iced up. That was the day by which all ships that had other places to go, had to be off the Great Lakes. For example in 2019 the Locks and the Great Lakes were opened to ocean traffic on March 29, 2019. The season was closed on December 31, 2019, and ships could no longer transit out of the Great Lakes.

It can easily be imagined that the closing weeks of the season were busy weeks as no shipping company would want their cargo vessel trapped in the Great Lakes for three months while the locks are closed.

On this morning I had arrived just at sunrise. The ship we were unloading was docked near the mouth of the Calumet River. The Calumet River stretches from Lake Michigan down into the industrial areas south of Chicago. The entire length of the river was wharves and turning basins, for the ships to tie up, unload, and maneuver back out to Lake Michigan. To the west the Calumet River joins the Des Plaines River via the Cal-Sag (Calumet-Saganashkee Channel) Canal, which carried barges from the Mississippi into this same maze of wharves in the industrial area.

I could not be further from the forests surrounding Chicago than standing on the deck of that ship on the Calumet River. When I turned to the North and looked to the other bank of the river, I could see the decrepit US Steel South Works. Its furnaces and mills were shut down, but the steel assets still stood against the rising sun of that morning.

It was odd, this behemoth of American industry shut down due to foreign competition from more modern facilities in Asia and in Europe, and the products of those foreign mills traveled to their buyers by landing on the wharves and docks along the Calumet River, and by first passing the US Steel South Works, the ancient and ruined guardian of the Lake shore.

The wind was blowing from the North. As it blew across the old South Works, it picked up dust and particles of steel. I could see the flecks of metal catching a glint of the morning sun as they floated in the air around me while I stood watching the cargo being unloaded on that cold winter morning.