Stories from the Road
February 2, 2018
Snowmass, CO.
"He could hear the boulders bouncing by as he made his way from eddy to eddy. A bad move meant the Braldu River would have its way with him."
Andrew Embrick, M.D. was a bigger than life, Hemingway type character. After graduating from Harvard Medical School, he did a year-long stint on an Indian reservation providing treatment. Then he and his wife, also an M.D., settled in Valdez, Alaska. Within a short time, he became an internationally recognized expert in ice climbing and whitewater kayaking, which he learned from a book and trial and error runs with local friends.
He established many new ice climbing routes in Alaska and made numerous exploratory kayaking runs on Alaska's wild rivers. In the early 1980's he led a small group of kayakers to Pakistan, where they became the first group to successfully run navigable sections of the Class VI Braldu River.
Years later I hiked along this river for many miles to its inception from beneath the Baltoro Glacier. It was hard to believe that anyone could have paddled this twisting, torrent of raging water.
Andrew Embrick was generous with his care, advice, and equipment to the many adventurers who came to Valdez to climb and paddle. Profoundly moved by his time in Pakistan, he returned on a medical sabbatical years later. He hiked to remote villages and treated the local inhabitants, who rarely received medical care.
When he returned, he seemed quieter and more remote to his friends. He had laid out many cross-country ski trails around Valdez, and his constant confrontations with local snowmobilers resulted in his legal banishment from the trails.
Shortly thereafter he shot himself in the head with his 12 gauge shotgun. He was 53 years old. His suicide was hard to understand.
Vicki was taking care of her cold today and after one run on an icy trail, she skied in. I stayed out and found some groomed runs that were fun. At one point on Sheer Bliss, I was the only person on the trail. The sky was dark, and the wind was blowing. it was an eerie feeling.
Babylon Berlin is the new Netflix series that is becoming popular around the world. Set in post WW I Germany in the 1920's, the series tells the story of a young detective who comes to Berlin on assignment only to be caught up in a convoluted series of events. His own story is complicated and weaves throughout the central narrative of crime and conspiracy. The cast is excellent and the intrigue is non stop.
Under tremendous pressure from her own board and Nixon's people Mrs. Graham and her courageous editor, Ben Bradlee, struggle to do the right thing. The movie is relevant today in light of Trump's antipathy toward the press or anyone who criticizes him.
Is it a gun problem? Yes. Is it a mental health problem? Yes. Is it a cultural problem? Yes. It is all those things and more. Self-interested groups like the NRA and its supporters want to reduce a complex problem to a single variable cause and effect. This type of thinking is simplistic and flawed. What is needed is a multi-variable approach that is based on research and critical thinking. Such an approach is expensive and needs a long-term commitment.
California is different, and I have to applaud the DMV. There are orderly systems in place, and the agency moves a lot of people through different processes in a relatively efficient manner. The problem is there are too many people getting served.
I saw The Post the other night and liked it very much. It is a complex movie with numerous stories within it. Katherine Graham who took over her family newspaper when her brilliant husband, who suffered from bi-polar disease, committed suicide. Initially, she was a figurehead who wasn't taken seriously by the board of the Post. When it came time to risk government legal action by publishing the Pentagon Papers, she found her voice with the help of Ben Bradlee, her editor, and went against her board to publish.
The movie also examines the relationship of newspaper people to politicians, people they potentially have to cover. Typically the fear is that cozy relationships are a barrier to objective coverage. Ben Bradlee criticized Katherine Graham for her relationship to Robert McNamara, but I think it was her deep disappointment in McNamara's deceit about the Vietnam War that helped Mrs. Graham eventually give the go-ahead to publish the papers.
Shortly thereafter he shot himself in the head with his 12 gauge shotgun. He was 53 years old. His suicide was hard to understand.
He would bring out a rug and tell its history. It was made in this village or that village by struggling families. The figures on the rug meant different things. I felt I was in a history class. It was a fun process, but there was no way after the lessons, tea, and attention that you couldn't buy a rug. It was OK with us because we enjoyed the presentation and had planned to buy a couple of rugs.
The shop wrapped our rugs in hemp with a handle so they were easy to carry. A few days later we walked through Pakistani customs with them, and a man yelled at me, " You can't take rugs from Pakistan." I thought this was an interesting statement since rugs were a major export item in Pakistan. The exit process from the country had been tedious, and I was fed up. I yelled at him that I was taking the rugs and walked by him.
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