Book Review -- "Walking to Canterbury" by Jerry Ellis.

While on our annual family outing in the Eastern Sierras for Aida's birthday, during which we inhabited a cabin at Virginia Lakes that is owned by some very kind friends, my sister-in-law Lisa and I were so exhilarated by the local trails that we decided we would like to take a trip to Britain next year to go walk-a-bout.  Combing the San Francisco Main Library for books to help us plan such UK outing, I happened upon a book in the travel-writing section with an intriguing title -- "Walking to Canterbury: A Modern Journey Through Chaucer's Medieval England." The title piqued my interest, as it seemed likely that the book's contents would provide a few ideas for our own trek.  More than just ideas, this book provided ample inspiration!

Author Jerry Ellis is well known for taking very long walks and then writing beautifully about them.  He explains in "Walking to Canterbury" that he has ancestral roots in the British Isles and also some Cherokee blood.  Ellis had previously undertaken a journey across the Trail of Tears, that had been the route of the forced Cherokee exodus from their homeland at the direction of our government in the 1830s.  He had written about this extensive hike in his celebrated book entitled "Walking the Trail" (which is now on my reading list). Ellis felt behooved to embark upon a pilgrimage in the UK that would in some ways mirror his expedition in honor of the Cherokee.

Ellis recounts his experiences as he walked along the medieval Pilgrim's Way to Canterbury, which he began not far outside London and concluded about a week later at Canterbury Cathedral, the site of the brutal murder/martyrdom of Thomas Becket.  He alternates his physical and spiritual adventures along the trail with fascinating studies, both of life in medieval England and the troubled pilgrims described in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  Ellis finds himself sympathizing, and sometimes identifying, with the medieval pilgrims, and he describes his strong, reliant affection for the colorful characters with whom he interacts during his week in 1999 England.

In the book's Epilogue, Ellis offers some of the perspective to be gained from a look back at medieval Britain:  "While the medieval church may have controlled the ignorant masses, the modern American world is also a bit brainwashed.  But instead of the church doing it on the great scale it once celebrated, it has been replaced with advertisements on TV: every other ad caters to people's fear of death, just as profound now as it was in the Middle Ages.  But instead of taking pilgrimages for our spiritual and physical health, we have turned to 'miracles' in the form of every pill imaginable.  Don't forget to buy that new car, the latest fashion, and diet food--guaranteed to give heaven on earth."

"Walking to Canterbury" is an engrossing book for anyone who enjoys purposeful, explorational walks that immerse the sojourner in nature, history, and culture as well as provide encounters with interesting people.  Ellis' approach to his own genealogical background has provided inspiration for my own efforts at compiling family history, and I believe others who have ancestral roots in Britain will find this book valuable. Ellis has likely motivated many of his readers to undertake at least small sections of the walks about which he has written, particularly this one in England because the UK government marks and preserves the trail.

The modern official British National Trail name for the Pilgrim's Way described by Chaucer is the North Downs Way.  Sections of the original trail are no longer accessible, but North Downs retraces as much of the medieval route as possible, and locals still call it Pilgrim's Way.  

A very blessed Thanksgiving to you all!  May you feast upon the warmth of family and drink deeply of the knowledge that they love you as you are!!

Annie

"Just as our forefathers came to America to seek a better life, I grasped more clearly in digesting my trek to Canterbury that we are still searching for meaning and purpose in a complex and constantly changing society." -- Jerry Ellis

A Quick Request From A Simple Patriot.

Dear Friends, 

More than a week has passed.

Although I acknowledge that the freedom to wage protest is sacred to all patriotic Americans, I feel the current crop of discontents who rail over the election of Trump to the presidency is not allowing themselves to appreciate an essential element of the American public arena -- the sheer power that is manifest by means of the constant atmosphere of rivalry that fills the lungs of every thinking American.

This rivalry has kept our brains oxygenated since our days as colonial subjects. This element of the American mind has changed little over three centuries, save for the fluctuations of contemporary circumstances. The genius of the very Constitution by which we govern ourselves is that it is, itself, the product of profound disagreement. 

Every election, especially the federal ones, are a toss of the coin of public opinion. Particularly in the cases of the presidency and the partisan makeup of Congress, the heads and tails of this coin have taken fairly even turns throughout our history. If one side gives in to histrionics when the other side wins, they are cheating themselves of the comfort they should take in the likelihood that the next coin toss will favor their side.

This back-and-forth lob of primacy in our political structure keeps everyone in the game, always training for the next contest. If you must cry over a loss, make it a brief sniffle, then get back to work.

God bless America!

Annie

"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." -- Thomas Jefferson

Across the U.S. in Die Frau Blue Car, Part II

Hello, everyone!  

Just got released from jury duty -- again!  Is it possible I have inherited my mother's unacceptability for juries?  Over and over, she was rejected to serve on juries because the attorneys thought she would be biased, due to the fact that she was a mother (the "lioness" type) and a working woman (the "no-nonsense" type).  Was she really biased?  Probably!  But still she would have tried to be fair.  Oh, well, they will keep calling me up, so perhaps I'll get my chance.

When last I was recounting my Summer vehicular sojourn, I was departing Texas and heading to New Orleans.  I hadn't been there for several years, since before Hurricane Katrina.  As a fan of traditional jazz music and of southern culture in general, I made it a point to spend a day in Nola.  The strong French background in my family leads me to enjoy the Francophile vibe in Louisiana, although the French who settled there were mostly Catholic, while we are descended from persecuted Huguenot Protestants.  

Regardless, I don't believe my Huguenot ancestors would have minded that I made my usual stop in Saint Louis Cathedral to take a look at their gorgeous ceiling.

For the first time, I wandered a over to the Old Ursuline Convent for a tour of its French Colonial building and gardens.  The Ursuline nuns have had a presence in New Orleans since the 18th Century, caring for the poor and educating local girls.  Their chapel has a serene feel with lots of lovely art.

New Orleans is one of the few places where I will enthusiastically stop and listen to street musicians and put more than just pocket change into their instrument cases.  These are not your typical buskers!  Some of the most soulful jazz you will hear is played outside of the clubs, in the open air, in New Orleans.  My meanderings around the French Quarter on this trip were, as usual, a treat for the ears!

Oh, yes, and a treat for the taste buds!  Can't visit Nola and not indulge in some seafood (this time, yummy catfish) and beignets from Café Du Monde (Marty made me promise to have one for him)!

À bientôt, Mes Amis!

Annie

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” – John Quincy Adams

Friendly Hostelling in the UK (Sisters In Europe, Part II)

Hope you are all enjoying the cooler, yet cozier, days of Autumn!  If you have never before traveled to Europe, may I recommend that you make your first trip there in the Autumn?  My first journey to England was taken during a September in the late 1980s, and I was treated to minimal rain and relatively small crowds at even the most popular sites. The Spring is nice, too, but you are more likely to have a wet (albeit still pleasant) visit during those months.

Another recommendation I like to make for travel, particularly in Europe, is to try staying in hostels.  You can check out websites such as hostelworld.com (the one I use most often) and try to find hostels with guest reviews that are mostly positive.  As a bonus, many hostels add considerable local character to your visit.  Many believe that hostels are only for young singles or backpackers, but I have seen more and more middle-aged and retired folks enjoying the communal vibe of hostels in recent years (we Boomers have not lost our sense of adventure, you know!).  If you are not jazzed by the idea of sleeping in a dormitory with 20-year-olds, you can find a good many very nice private and double rooms in hostels, and you won't always have to share a community bathroom.  

My sister Cynthia is an immensely social person, so I booked us almost exclusively in hostels for our European explorations.  For the most part, we found our hostel stays to be quite pleasant, with friendly staff and guests.  Frankly, I have had more bad experiences with hotels over the years than I have had staying in hostels, so I remain confident in recommending them.  Another bonus with hostels is they are usually much freer with advice and ideas for local exploration.  Only once have I been steered into the wrong direction by a hostel (more about that when I tell you about our adventures in Rome).

For our initial stop in London, I introduced Cynthia to the full-on experience of hostelling by booking space in a 10-bed dormitory at Clink-261 near Kings Cross Station.  Previously, I had had a pleasant stay in the same hostel back when it was named Ashlee House, and their redux is a nice modernization.  Here is a pic of the room in which we slept:

As you can see, the room is clean with security cameras.  Clink-261 also has smaller, less populated rooms, of course, along with free lockers, fresh towels, simple breakfast (toast, cereal, etc.), and a full kitchen for use by guests.

From London, we journeyed northward by taking a nice, comfy bus to the historic hot-spring-spa city of Bath, which is famous for its Roman bath ruins.  The original Roman bath has been tinkered with by British visitors over the years, but much of the original structures remain, and you can still drink water from the hot spring (and we did!).  

I don't take many "touristy" photographs, preferring to take photos of the whimsical and artful objects I encounter.  Here are a painted horse and a mosaic pig we found in Bath:

Cynthia and I enjoyed very much the friendly YMCA hostel in Bath, which I recommend highly for inexpensive, comfy lodging:

From Bath, Cynthia and I boarded a train to Manchester, where our paternal grandmother was born.  Manchester remains an industrial city full of hard-working people from all over Europe and beyond.  My next Europe-related post will provide a report about our experiences in Manchester and the suburb in which our grandmother was raised, Hazel Grove.

Cheerio, for now!

Annie

"To love is to act." -- Victor Hugo

Across the U.S. in Die Frau Blue Car ("neigh!" -- Young Frankenstein reference), Part I

May all of you have a colorful and inspiring Autumn, fair readers!

On Tuesday, June 21st, I embarked upon a marvelous adventure across our beautiful country in our blue 2008 Chevy Aveo, loaded with bedding and camping gear for off-road catnaps between motel shower+bed stays. My traveling companions included a Google tablet full of audio books; a road atlas from AAA; an interstate-highway guide entitled Next Exit, that lists the amenities to be found near each off-ramp; plus a small baseball bat, a can of mace, and a key chain that screams when you pull it. 

Fortunately, I had trouble with neither man nor beast on this journey. Sometimes it was too hot and muggy to sleep, but only once did the weather become a problem, when torrents of pea-sized hail fell one afternoon in New Mexico, with such density that for an hour it was impossible to see while driving. However, a spectacular sight it was, accompanied by sensational thunder and lightening! Sometimes the GPS on my tablet took me to odd places, although it saved my sanity many times on obscure country roads that lacked signage.

The first notable place that I visited was the Grand Canyon, at which I spent an inspirational afternoon. There had been some rain that day, so many of the "softer" tourists were leaving when I arrived, and I was able to spend a couple of hours on the Rim Trail without having to battle crowds. Wonderful!

Two-and-a-half days were spent in Texas, visiting the three Presidential libraries/museums there -- LBJ's and Bush 41's and 43's. The LBJ museum at UT Austin was particularly fun for me because he was president during my early childhood in the 1960s, and there were copious artifacts representing my first memories of what was on the evening news -- Kent State, Watts, Vietnam, Woodstock, etc.  Bush 43's museum at Southern Methodist U. is very high-tech and interactive, much like the recent remodel of the Reagan Library. My favorite of the three is Bush 41's museum at Texas A&M, which has a very personal, home-grown feel to it, and when I visited there was a special exhibit of classic cars. The grounds near the Bush 41 museum are particularly welcoming and include a rose garden, a catch-and-release fishing pond, and a foot bridge that leads out to a peaceful gated family grave site, where their daughter, Robin, has been re-interred. One of my favorite features of the Bush 41 compound is this gorgeous sculpture of horses jumping over a piece of the Berlin Wall:

This travelogue will continue in upcoming posts, but I'd like to close this log entry with the announcement of a special project that I have begun on behalf of my family, in honor of my late mother:

The Bonnie Pryne Schaack Memorial Heritage Project

The chief aim of this project is to compile as many facts and stories about our family as possible, in order to produce electronic and printed archives for future generations of our family to explore, preserve, and append. Part of preserving our family heritage should involve maintaining sites and artifacts such as grave sites. Some of our ancestors' existing monuments are badly worn and require fresh markers.  Here is the first one I wish to refresh:

This is the marker for my maternal great-grandmother's mother, Idella Butler Segondollar, who died in 1895 when she was just 23 years old, and great-grandma was only five. This grave site also contains the remains of my great-grandmother's twin brother, Henry, who died at birth in 1890. More news regarding the Heritage Project's activities will be reported on this web log, as well.

Annie

"The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

An Example of Everyday Heroism (Sisters In Europe, Part I)

My energetic and incurably generous sister, Cynthia, had her 50th birthday in 2015.  She has worked hard her entire adult life and has raised, with her husband John, three exceptional children who are now compassionate and accomplished adults.  During the two years that our mother was ill with lung cancer, prior to her death in 2013, Cynthia earned her unquestionable status as the family heroine by giving Mom daily attention and TLC, all while holding down a job and helping to care for a grand-niece!  Cynthia lives very close to where Mom resided, so the burden of being on-call for Mom naturally fell upon her, but Cynthia never complained.  Our sister, Denise, and I live several hours away by car, and we would help out whenever we could.  Mom's brother, James, moved in with her and was also immensely helpful with her care, and these days Cynthia keeps an eye on Uncle Jimmy, as well!

For some time, I had wanted to do something special for my incredible little sister.  With the support of our husbands and Cynthia's employer, I was able to whisk her away for a five-country, month-long tour of Europe during the Summer of 2015!

It was determined that London would be our travel hub.  For Americans visiting Europe for the first time, London is an ideal launching pad, because we Yanks can understand fairly well the local BBC accent (thank you, Masterpiece Theater and Harry Potter!), and London is home to so many iconic attractions.  Who hasn't heard of The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, or Saint Paul's Cathedral? 

Cynthia on the Tower Bridge next to the London coat-of-arms
with the motto "Domine Dirige Nos" (Lord, guide us)

We stayed in my usual London haunt, a hostel now called Clink 261, formerly Ashlee House, near Kings Cross Station.  That neighborhood is convenient for excursions to just about anywhere in England, not just London, and I like that it is close to the British Library and Camden Town, where there is a lot of good shopping and great nightlife.

It was no surprise to me that Cynthia enjoyed exploring London's rich history and culture, but I was surprised to discover that she had never tried Indian food!  We were in an excellent location to fix that problem! Some of the best and most affordable meals you can have in England are prepared by people from India and Pakistan.  Our first meal in London had to be Indian, of course, and she is now an enthusiastic fan of Indian cuisine!

Further adventures of the Sisters In Europe coming soon!

Cynthia, Denise, and myself

Annie

"Spread love everywhere you go.  Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier." -- Mother Teresa

There and back again, then get thee to the Sierras!

Home at last, after nearly nine weeks touring America the Beautiful!

It was a tremendous experience to be able to take my time meandering through our magnificent country, taking the southern route east and then the northern route west.  Any of you who happen upon the chance to explore the highways, country roads, and hiking trails of our glorious United States, do yourself a favor and do it, at least once!

The first time I took a long cross-country drive was in December of 1980, heading out to Illinois to visit a friend.  This Southern California girl was only 19 and had never before driven on snow or ice, so much of the trip was slippery and not particularly pleasant.  To make the journey worse, that was the December that John Lennon was murdered in New York, so radio broadcasts were replete with memories of Lennon and his music, which created a fog of melancholia over the psyche of this child of the 60s, who had grown up with his music and whose grandmother shared the Beatles' working-class Lancashire County accent.  The bummer of Lennon's murder added injury to the insult of having my '73 Datsun 710 wagon pulled out of snow drifts along Route 66 by passing truckers.  The negative memories of that journey were destined to be counteracted.  In upcoming posts, I'll be recounting the wonderful ways in which that road-trip redemption has been accomplished.

Interspersed between tales from this Summer's adventures, there will be long-overdue postings about the adventures enjoyed by my sister Cynthia and I when we spent a month in Europe last Summer.

The final five days of my trans-American adventure was spent in the magnificent Sierra Nevada mountains camping out with family and close friends to celebrate the 94th birthday of my inspirational mother-in-law, Aida.  It is a tradition for us to sing to Aida on one of the Sierra trails for her birthday, and this year we did so about a mile into the trail leading out to Green Lake.  The last half of the 2-1/2-mile Green Lake trail involves crossing streams and climbing large rocks, which is dangerous for Aida these days, but she conquered the early portion of the trail, hiking poles in-hand, with her usual determined grace that inspires us all!

To honor and imitate our beloved Matriarch, some of us traversed the remainder of the Green Lake trail, and here is a peek at the grandeur to which we were treated when we reached the lake:

Here is a photo of me with Aida, who has me captivated with the wisdom and experience she is likely sharing.  There seems no end to what I can learn from her!

A safe and memorable Labor Day weekend to all of you!

Annie

"God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well." -- Voltaire