The Man in Black

Las Vegas as usual was steaming. It was the winter of 1962, and I was on a leave of absence from college to “find myself”. I didn’t think I was in Las Vegas, but I thought it might be an interesting adventure to spend a few weeks there.

I got a night job working as a busboy, so my days were clear. I discovered that Johnny Cash was playing in a local casino. I had been a fan of Johnny’s for a long time, and I   remembered fondly songs like “Jackson” and “Fever”. I went to the lounge early, and gradually more and more people came. There seemed to be mostly locals, people who liked cowboy music.

The Tennessee Three, Johnny’s musicians, came out first and played a few songs. Johnny then entered the small stage, but there were problems. He stumbled around and tried to sing, but it wasn’t going to work. He was reported to have a speed problem, and that appeared to be the case. Finally one of the Tennessee Three said Johnny was ill, and he wouldn’t be able to continue.

In the late sixties I heard that John found religion and June Cater. I am not sure of the order, but June became a key figure in Johnny’s life. Not only was she a wonderful person, but she brought her famous singing family to the marriage. A tight knit group, the Carter family, which consisted off Mother Maybelle, Anita, and Helen, probably gave Johnny the base of caring and security he had always lacked. Having grown up the son of poor cotton pickers, Johnny had not had an easy childhood.

Over the years Johnny became a highly productive and popular entertainer. He was an icon of sorts, singing in his signature black outfit, championing the cause of the downtrodden. His renditions of gospel songs like “That Old Rugged Cross” and “Rock of Ages” have become Country classics. He sang with Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and of course his own family, the talented Carters. Johnny’s career ebbed and flowed as the public’s taste changed. However, he seemed to stay in peoples’ consciousness more than many singers. He was rediscovered by a Hollywood rock producer in recent years, and his career took off again.

Not long ago June Carter Cash died. She had been ill, but she kept the extent of her health problems from many. John, in poor health himself, never recovered from his loss, and he too died not long after his wife. The greats of country music came to his funeral and paid musical tribute to him. Later his estate was auctioned off, and Johnny’s personal effects brought in millions of more dollars than anyone thought possible.

One of Johnny’s best gospel songs is, “Peace in the Valley”. His life was not easy, and his music like that of Ray Charles has a haunting, soulful quality to it. Over the years Johnny Cash’s music making touched many people, young and old, rich and poor. People from the city listened to him as did the farmers in Alabama, Arkansas, and Missouri. He was a champion of cow punchers in Montana and Wyoming, and he gave hope to the down and out in prisons across the land. The journey of his life from poor cotton farmer to TV star was the stuff of legends. Through it all Johnny Cash seemed to remain connected to his roots and the people who were important to him. He appeared most content, when he sang the spiritual songs of his childhood. Indeed, may there be peace in the valley.

Lady of the Clothesline

From a helicopter Yonkers has a strange look to it. There are clotheslines everywhere. This sight may not seem unusual, until one notices that the maze of clotheslines stops at the city line. The outlying communities have gone “upscale” and don’t want the lines anymore. Malls and Starbucks are in, and clotheslines are out. It’s that simple.

For years the old lady had come out everyday to hang clothes. In the old days she leaned over the fence and talked to the neighbors on all sides. News was passed back and forth, and plans were made. Nowadays I guess they call it networking. In between the hanging of blue jeans and t-shirts, babies were named, parties planned, and morality reinforced through the passing of gossip.

Some years ago she came less often to hang her clothes. The neighbors said her memory was going. Where she once hung whites, she now put colors. Names were forgotten, and there was a distant look to her eyes. Then one day she was gone. People went to visit her on a regular basis, but it wasn’t the same, of course.

As the helicopter whirled away, he saw the house where she had lived for fifty years. Soon he was distant, and the clotheslines faded away. The sound of the chopper was loud, and he looked out to the suburbs, which were extending to the east, as far as his eyes could see.

Climbing Mt. Blanc

Mount Blanc, the highest mountain in Western Europe at more than15, 000 feet, dominates the landscape in Chamonix, a French alpine town. On a clear day it can easily be viewed from Switzerland and Italy.

I had come there in the early nineties to climb the mountain with my wife Vicki and a Chamonix Mountain Guide. We had arrived by train from northern Italy, where we had been hiking for a week in the Dolomites with Mountain/Travel Sobek, the adventure travel company. We were fit and ready to try Blanc.

Mountain Hut

Chamonix Mountain Guides are like professional athletes in the United States. Their training is long and arduous, and they command tremendous respect wherever they go in the mountains. The night before the two day climb we met our guide, who in contrast to Pierre, the guide who took us over the Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt years earlier, was mild mannered and quiet.

Guide and author

The first day we took a train partway up a flank of the mountain. We started hiking around noon through a boulder field that was steep and difficult. At one point we roped up and wore hard hats. The sun was hot, and I was getting very tired. Halfway up the route we came to a steep shoot. The crossing technique involved clipping onto a rope which traversed the steep snow and then inching one’s way across. There was an excitement to it all.

In late afternoon we reached our destination for the evening, a hut on the edge of the glacier leading to the summit of Mt. Blanc. The hut, which typically doesn’t turn anyone away, was packed. Though we had a reservation, which allowed us to have some space in a sleeping bin, we saw that many people did not. They stretched out on the floor or wherever they could find empty space.

To the WC

I slept fitfully that night as I was anxious about the climb and because a  young German man, who slept next to me, keep poking me in the head with his elbow in between his loud snores. At 1:00AM our guide woke us, and after hastily dressing, we put on crampons and head lamps before tying into the rope. The air was cold, and though other parties had started out at the same time, the distance between us made the night silent. All I could hear was the crunch of my boots on the hard snow. We had left at night so as to get the benefit of walking on frozen snow rather than the slush that came with the sunshine in the middle of the day. Night also reduced the danger of avalanche, since at that time the frozen snow wasn’t going to slide. The moon and stars were prominent. Parties of 6 or 7 people snaking up the frozen mountain on their ropes gave the scene an eerie quality.

On the summit

After many hours of climbing which wasn’t particularly difficult, we reached a knoll, where we put on out Gore-Tex suits. The wind was picking up, as we prepared to walk along a narrow ridge on the way to the summit. At seven in the morning I walked over a slight crest to the top of Europe. In the distance I could see Mount Paradiso in Italy and the Matterhorn in Zermatt. People from all over the world surrounded us, taking pictures and laughing in celebration... The air was very cold, so shortly we began our descent down the glacier on our way back to Chamonix.

Two days later we were settled in a beautiful hotel in Kanderstag, Switzerland. As I ate lunch by the pool, I looked up at the snow covered peaks behind our hotel in the mountains, and thought of future climbs and adventures in the high peaks of Western Europe.

Distant are the lights in the Valley

Not many people hiked in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 1957. It was before the outdoor and ecology movements, and the trails were empty. On weekends you could still find sleeping places in the shelters and small cabins that dotted the wilderness areas of Northern New Hampshire.

 

I was sixteen that summer, and I had driven to Randolph to climb Mt. Adams with two friends. I had spent years hiking in the White Mountains as a summer camper, but this was my first “solo” excursion. In the morning we climbed up a ridge to a small cabin, which overlooked a long valley. Our elevation was over 4000 feet.

After finding places to sleep in the cabin, talking to the few other backpackers, and preparing supper, we wedged ourselves between two big rocks near the cabin. We looked at the distant valley lights and talked for hours. We talked about future trips, adventures, and possibilities. It seemed as if we were the only people alive, as there was no sound other than that of the silent wind. I felt a sense of peace and contentment that I would feel many times later on, when I visited similar, wilderness places. Gradually the lights in the valley dimmed as night moved on. At some point we knew we needed to end this magical time, and we eventually walked to our cabin to let our dreams take over and carry us to other places distant in time and space.

Road Golf Italian Style

Driving in Italy is like playing golf. You must select the right club for the right driving context. For the auto strata big fast cars like Mercedes, Audis, and BMWs are effective. These cars will allow you to be competitive and not get pushed off the road by the impatient Italians who like to travel at high speeds with their lights blinking and horns honking. The custom is to ride up on someone’s bumper, flash lights, and then pass, when the slower car pulls into the right lane. Though there are speed limit signs posted, they don’t seem to have much impact on anyone. One time two police or Carabinieri cars pulled up behind me. I was going the speed limit, but they were driving so close I sped up. At first chance they passed me and sped down the road, though there did not seem to be any emergency.

 

The story above presents one of the paradoxes of Italian life. The population drives at high speeds only to stop for a leisurely espresso or relaxed lunch. Even in busy Rome it’s hard to get a waiter to bring a check, since the norm is to enjoy the food and company. So why the hurry on the roads? I don’t know, but maybe it has to do with the lack of upward mobility and personal control people don’t feel they have in Italy. Perhaps the roads give the populace a place to be in charge.  The sociologists can better answer this question than I.

Back road, country driving ideally necessitates another kind of club. As in golf, on a tight fairway, a player wouldn’t use a driver. A shorter, more efficient club like a six iron would be selected. In Italy this translates into any number of choices from Volkswagens to Fiats to Renaults. Speed isn’t as important on tight mountain roads as is the ability to corner, make tight turns, and downshift. Italians seem to love this type of driving. Big trucks especially delight is driving as if they were Alpha Romeo or Masserati sport cars. It can be frightening to have one of these trucks slip behind you and honk for you to pass the slow car in front. This wouldn’t be a problem on a straight road, but these truckers want you to pass on stretches of road that curve around blind corners!

In the United States people tend to drive in an orderly manner. One car waits his turn while another is moving through an intersection. The next car goes, and then the next. Such is not the case in Italy. It is up to the car at an intersection to make a move. More often than not drivers poke their cars into intersections thus forcing other cars to stop. It’s the same with walking. If you wait for the cars to stop and let you pass at a crosswalk, where there is no light, you may need to be packing lunch and supper! Pedestrians walk out into traffic and make the cars stop. It takes a leap of faith.

Sometimes one has to drive in Italy. If you are going to the countryside, public transportation can often be cumbersome. I try to stay on back, country roads whenever possible. When cars speed up behind me, I often pull over, letting the native pass. I bring good road maps with me from the states, and I utilize the hotel people to help me find the routes.

If you decide to play road golf in   beautiful Italy, there is no sense in saying, “Fore!” The Italians will only laugh, downshift, and speed by as they drift into the next corner!

Vincenzo's Place

We were headed toward the Spanish Steps in search of espresso before heading to the Coliseum. It was hot and muggy in Rome in the summer of 2004, and my long, out of control hair wasn’t helping the situation any. I didn’t even see the shop, but my wife Vicki, ever the eagle eye, spotted the traditional red and white pole and suggested I get a haircut.

The idea appealed to me, but I was a little nervous, since I didn’t know what to expect. I peaked in the door, and the shop was empty but for the barber, a distinguished man with white mustache and hair, and a female, who seemed to be his assistant and manicurist. I walked in and was greatly warmly

Vincenzo sat me down, after I told him and the assistant that I wanted the cut, media. He smiled and began working. My retired stateside barber, Al Latham, use to say he could tell a man’s skill within a few seconds. “It’s all in the hands, Dave, it’s all in the hands,” were his exact words.

With Al’s criteria in mind I noticed that Vincenzo worked like a skilled surgeon. Standing erect with a dignified posture, Vincenzo moved swiftly, cutting and shaping overgrown, neglected hair. His focus was sharp, and he didn’t attempt to talk about sports like the barbers of my childhood. The fact that he didn’t speak English was partly responsible for his silence, but I don’t know how much he would have talked, had I spoken Italian.

After cutting a significant amount of hair, Vincenzo moved me to the sink for a wash. This was a reverse process from that in America, but by now I realized I was in the hands of a master craftsman, and I had no worry. Following the wash he sprinkled my head with a refreshing lotion of some kind and then dried my hair. At one point he put a net over my head for shaping purposes. He never used clippers like American barbers, but rather he pulled out a straight razor, sharpened it, and trimmed here and there. When he finished using the razor, like an operating room physician, he held out the razor which was snatched up with precision by his assistant. The whole thing was like watching Bob Cousy do his magic with the Celtics back in the 50s.

All too soon the cut was over, and Vincenzo made out a bill with an itemization of charges. He broke the cut down into categories and charged by procedure, just like a hospital. Since his shop was located in a tourist area in an expensive part of Rome, I knew his fee would be high. Though it was more than I typically paid in the States, it wasn’t too bad, and the showmanship of it all made the price more than worth it. Before I left he shook my hand with both of his, smiled warmly, and wished me well. His assistant walked me to the door. We said “Ciao” to both the professionals and continued on our search for strong Italian coffee.

 

The Starter Revisited

 

Some years ago at Sun Valley, Idaho I ordered a breakfast sandwich called a “starter”. It consisted of an egg, Canadian bacon, and a slice of cheese, cooked and placed on a toasted English muffin. Over time I have experimented with the sandwich. Here is my latest version.

1.    Toast an English muffin.

2.     Place thin slices of peperoni on one side of the muffin.

3.     Melt some cheese over the peperoni in the microwave oven. I like a tangy cheese like sharp cheddar, Gorgonzola, or blue cheese.

4.    Scramble an egg in some olive oil.

5.    Add hot, fresh salsa on top of the cooked egg.

6.    Place the sides of the muffin together.

The starter is very tasty and satisfying.