Flying High in Ecuador....

Our American Airline flight touched down in Quito, Ecuador at about 7:20PM on Thursday evening, November 8. Kirk, Chris and I...with Kirk's dad, Barry, arriving later that night.

Quito's airport sits about 9,200 feet above sea level. That complicates both landings and take-0ffs. At that altitude air is thinner. Those little molecules are way far apart compared to, say, Ocean City, Maryland. So pilots have to come in "hot" (that's pilot talk for "real fast') to allow for better control of the plane. Our guy and gal did just fine.

This was our first overseas trip together--my son, Chris and I, that is. His good friend, Kirk, had business there, so he and his dad and the two of us went adventuring. On Friday afternoon, our friend and guide from Quito, Bill, said "Let's go see the butterflies!" Now I'm all about transformation (ugly caterpillar to gorgeous winged-thing), but driving 2 hours to see butterflies wasn't really on my agenda. And, I gotta tell ya, the tone of the words and the look in the eye were a wee bit suspect.

And, with good reason. Nary a butterfly to be seen when we pulled up to this place in the Ecuadorian rain forest....to find a number of slightly-built young men in T-shirts, jeans, and Wellington rain boots carrying harnesses and pulleys. These were not for teams of horses plowing the fertile soil. No, no. These were for us. Unsuspecting gringos, about to embark on a "canopy tour" of the forest on 3/4 inch steel zip lines suspended hundreds of feet over the valley floor, were at their mercy.

You get strapped into the harness--around the waist, around each thigh, cinch it all tight, clip on the cable for the pulley that slips over the high-wire, clip on the other safety cable to the high-wire--and you're ready to go. Oh, except for the helmet. Helmets for all. Except me. None big enough. Didn't need one anyway. Might get in the way of having my head examined. The last item was the thick leather gloves, Paul Bunyanesque, with extra leather strips a 1/2 deep within the palms. These are the brakes.

They explained it simply. Two or three Ecuadorian little guys--compared to gringo gordo--would go first, zinging through space on a spider web attached to another tree about 500 yards away. Landing on a wooden platform built like something from Swiss Family Robinson, they then prepared to "catch" us as we rocketed through the ozone.

The signals were simple: if, on approach, we saw them waving us toward them...we should lean forward to increase our momentum, so as to not get left dangling in space 200 ft from the landing zone. Good plan.

If, however, we saw them pushing their hands toward us, as if trying to shove a giant medicine ball our direction, we were to lean back and pull down mightily on that steel cable, which was keeping us from plummeting to certain death amidst the sharp, poisonous, and sticky things so many storeys below.

We , of course, had the very special braking gloves, which prevent your fingers from being flileted, severed, or burned through and cauterized all in 3 nano-seconds at 183 miles per hour. This, understandably, requires a unique blend of physical and emotional focus, which at that speed and height tries the souls of men, women and large gibbons.

Things went quite well, really, in the first 25 minutes and the first 2 runs (there were ten in all). Then, in a matter of seconds, we came to understand why they call it "rain forest." It certainly does. It has a wonderful cooling effect at 9,000 feet.

What it really does, however, is negate the viability of those magnificent leather "braking" gloves. It's sort of "the Great Flying Bandinis placebo effect." It's the illusion of being able to control your destiny. Riding the zip line has a unique sound to it.... a pitch somewhere between the key of C and the scream of a banshee depending on one's speed. Hurtling along with the banshees in my next run, trying to see the hand-signals through the downpour, leaning back and pulling down with everything in me...it was 11th grade physics class at Fremont High in Oakland, CA. You know, mass times velocity squared equals momentum.

By the time the young Ecuadorians are in sight, I am at warp speed and they look like they are directing the London Philharmonic in Beethoven's Fifth--in triple-time! My thought is "This can't end well." But it does. It is my version of Joe Dimaggio sliding into second base cleats high, sopping wet. They have the gringo's size twelve imprints, no doubt, several places on their torsos. And, we all live to zip another day.

Back in Quito at dinner that night, we get word that the airport will be closed for several days. In the last hour an Iberia Airbus 340 arriving from Spain came in "high and hot" in the rain and skidded off the end of the runway. Nobody hurt. Just shaken.

They had nuthin' on us.

"Of Cabbages and Kings..."

A lineup of presidential hopefuls spoke at the National Rifle Association meeting in DC this week. Any group that has 4 million members is a target audience (no pun intended) for those looking to the elections of 2008. It got me thinking about the nature of the country and the founders' intent.

Two hundred thirty years ago, when Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Madison and so many others--lesser known, but thoughtful patriots all--framed the documents we still revere, the core value that won the day was freedom. Specifically, individual freedom---to speak, to worship, to congregate, and so on. The system they designed to ensure that freedom was democracy.

I love a free country. Love to vote, to move about freely, to express my opinions, to live out my convictions. But, one only has to visit Capitol Hill for a day to see that the democratic process is absolutely inefficient. The House has 435 opinions; the Senate is slow; the President can veto whatever the House and Senate finally agree on; it takes a 2/3rd majority vote to over-ride him; and, if it's a Constitutional issue, the Supreme Court weighs in. We call it checks and balances, so that too much power doesn't end up in one place. In truth, we have a democracy because we didn't want a king. Been there, done that, got creamed, not going there again.

Kings have a history of starting out as liberators and ending up as despots. Read any major history...or...take a shortcut to I Samuel 8. But, there's the tension. When I start following Jesus, I run head-on into a king. I love a democracy, but I am designed for a Kingdom. I live out my years on earth, but I am bound for heaven.

How do I deal with that? What does Kingdom-living really mean?

Walkin' The Dog......

It's 102 degrees today in Springfield, MO. But early this morning when Cameron (6 years old) and I walked Chunk (8 1/2 year old black lab), it wasn't so bad. Until we met another walker with a dog. Big brown dog. Big white teeth. Then, things heated up. Apparently, big brown had awakened on the wrong side of the water bowl.

Dog threatenings ensued on each side---barks and snarls and lunges. Both of us adult humans held onto the canines and got an upper body work out. It was kind of like watching prizefighters at the weigh-in. Stony faces, glistening muscles, entourages arrayed behind them. Then one says something taken as a "dis" and it's barks, snarls and lunges---with trainers and bodyguards trying to separate them.

That scene is one of conflict. The trainers-and-leashes drill is conflict management. Superficial resolution is accomplished by distance. Walking away.

Conflict is just a part of the human (and obviously, canine) condition. It comes out of territory, space, personality, affront, relationship, and a hundred other things. It happens with others...and it happens within us. I think a phrase of choice today is "I am just so conflicted!"

We have conflicts around everything from broken pledges to restaurant preference, from choosing wall colors to child discipline methods, from how the toothpaste gets squeezed to nuclear proliferation.

I agree with the author, David Augsberger, who wrote a book on the subject many years ago, called "Caring Enough To Confront." He simply says conflict happens.....and it's neutral.
How we respond is what makes the difference. He proceeds to outline 5 ways of dealing with it:

1. I'll get you. That was the dog-deal this morning. I'm right, you're wrong....I'm gonna get you. Over the years I have refined this method to an art form. Unfortunately, it never works.

2. I'll give in. You're always right, I'm always wrong...so I'll just curl up over here in the corner and eat some worms. The person who always accedes or "gives in" in the relationship, in the long-term doesn't help it.

3. I'll get out. Walking away, over time, doesn't help. Though to prevent too much intensity sometimes it helps in the short-term. A few years ago at a conference in Cartagena, Colombia a man told me about an old couple, who were being honored for being married 75 years. The M.C. asked the old man, a southern farmer, how the marriage had lasted that long. He replied, "Me and Maw had this here 'greement that it things ever go too hot and mean, ah'd jest go out and set on the porch til we both cooled down. Then, ah'd go on in and work it on out. Ah guess, this marriage has lasted this long 'cause of all that great outdoor livin'!"

4. I'll go part way. The fine art of compromise is the stuff of good relationships, but often takes time to figure out how to get there.

5. Affirm the person... confront the issue. The best way...the most structural/foundational manner to move forward. Jesus did it in John 8 with the adulteress woman whom the religious types were ready to stone, when he sent them on their way then said to her, "Who condemns you?" She replied, "No one." He said, "Neither do I. Go and sin no more." Or perhaps to paraphrase, "You are a great lady and that's not what great ladies do!"

So, I'll expect conflict, but try to keep from creating it.

I guess, if I don't get it right....we're back to a dog's life.

Stick It In Your Ear........

All of my growing up years, I was told to keep sharp objects away from my face. The eyes, ears, nose, and mouth were very sensitive areas…just don’t mess around there.

I did however have one caveat: in a day when language was less blunt than it is today, I would, when angered by one of my young friends, holler “Aw, just stick it in your ear!” I didn’t really think it would be good for a kid to stick stuff in his ear, but it felt good to say it.

I love the story I heard a while ago of the two brothers. Their parents were ex-patriots in the Middle East. The older boy would often execute his historic right---tormenting his younger brother. At dinner one evening he faked cramming a piece of olive up his nose. The younger brother followed suit and very effectively lodged the olive segment high in his nostril. An emergency room doctor extracted it. Not long later, it was the ol’ stick-the-carrot-in-the-ear trick….with the same result. As the same doctor fished for the carrot chunk in the little guy’s ear, he turned to the dad and said, “Sir, you have got to teach this boy where his mouth is!”

Ears are big (well, some are big, but all are significant). The two unique appendages that bracket one’s head capture a world of intonation, information, melody, rancor, sweet nothings…and so on. Hearing is a primary way of understanding. Jesus of Nazareth often concluded his insightful (sometimes in-your-face) comments with “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” The suggestion is, I think, that there’s a difference between listening and hearing.

It’s the Army master sergeant bawling, “Awright, troops, hear this!” or a mom saying, “Jimmy, did you hear me?” Sometimes we can’t hear and sometimes we won’t. One is a challenge and the other is a choice. I’ve had much more experience with the latter…until a few weeks ago.

Visiting friends in Illinois and playing wiffle baseball with our 6 year old grandson, Cameron Foth, I suddenly lost hearing in my right ear. The emergency room doctor described it as “sudden onset hearing loss.” Of course, I knew that. What I didn’t know was “why”…and neither did (do) they. It just happens to folks out of the blue every now and again. It’s an inner ear thing, and sometimes the hearing returns. Often, it doesn’t. Mostly it is treated for a time with oral steroids to see if it helps.

Having been told that quite likely the nerve in the inner ear was damaged, and hearing wouldn’t come back, I sought a second opinion with encouragement from Ruth and another good friend. The Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore, MD is #1 in the United States, as is their Ear, Nose, Throat Clinic. The chairman of the dept. said, “Ah, but we do have an option.”

Whereupon, he described what is called an ”intratympanic injection.” That’s an injection of steroids directly through the eardrum into the middle ear to be absorbed into the inner ear. The part of that long word which caught my attention was “—panic.” However, the chances of regaining hearing, he said, were 30 to 50%. Now, I’m not great at math, but that sounded way better than 0%. So…we are going for it. Three shots in three weeks. One down two to go.

Life is a hoot. You never know what’s going to happen next. I know this much: “stick it in your ear” has a whole new meaning to me these days.

The City of Anne and Warm Cantaloupe.....

We're back.

It's Sunday night and a humid 70 degrees, the calls of crickets and cicadas hop from water molecule to water molecule. We spent 3 hours on a 90 minute journey from Richmond, VA...lightning, thunder, and sporadic deluges made for bumper-to-bumper on I-95.

Urbanna, VA was a quaint delight. Urbanna ("the city of Anne") was settled by the English in the 1680 and named after Anne, the Queen of England, when she took the throne in 1704. Before that the Nimcock Indians lived there. Tried to imagine that as I jogged across the mist-touched Urbanna Creek bridge (biggest creek I've ever seen at about 800 ft. wide) at 6:30 in the morning with the sun hanging low on my left over the Chesapeake Bay like a huge, ripe persimmon.

Anne and the settlers and the Nimcocks are no more. Just the creek and the Chesapeake and the rising sun....350 years later. How does James say it? "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while then vanishes."

Well, for being a misty blip on the radar screen of the universe, I'm a grateful blip. Ruth and I were commenting in the car---somewhere between an antique store and a fresh vegetable stand---that we are most blessed with 4 great kids and spouses and 10 terrific grandchildren. Who deserves that kind of thing? Not us, but we're lovin' every minute.

Late morning we pulled over on a country road to check out a vegetable stand run by a couple of good ol' boy's missing a few teeth, but not missing any congeniality. They were delightful!...and good salesmen. We walked away with a bunch of fresh tomatoes, potatoes and string beans for $7....then on the way out they suggested that the cantaloupe (just-right ripe) might be a good buy....so we bought....4 for $2.

After we stopped a couple of more times...like for dinner? Those cantaloupe in the hot car were talkin' to us. Tomatoes and taters don't let you know where they are, but ripe cantaloupe are ever-present. At this writing, the vegetables are in the refrigerator, as are 3 of the cantaloupe.

But one is in the Foths. Didn't last 20 minutes after we got home.

Our two days away are bracketed by Queen Anne and a warm cantaloupe. There's gotta be a country song in there somewhere.

Milepost 44........

Forty four years ago tonight I was sleeping outside in the central valley of California with several of my best friends. Oh, not in the woods. The smell of peaches was heavy on the warm summernight air and we were stretched out on sleeping bags on the lawn of a country frame house a few miles north of Modesto. The friends were my groomsmen and the house belonged to Roy and Opal Blakeley, who within 24 hours would be my in-laws. At 8 PM the next evening with the temperature about 105 degrees, I would exchange vows with their eldest daughter, Ruth. That began the second greatest adventure of my life.

On our wedding night, the traditional "chase" ensued, as we embarked on a week-long honeymoon. Most folks faded back after a few miles,when we pulled onto Highway 99 toward San Francisco....except, of course, for Stan on the motorcycle. If nothing else, he was focused. A gentle-but-enthusiastic soul, he followed us---as I recall--- all the way to the Dumbarton Bridge, which crosses the south end of San Francisco bay. The toll booth apparently proved his undoing.

We traveled that week from Palo Alto to Strawberry Lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains...then to Long Beach in the south to catch the ship for Catalina Island...back up the coast and to Modesto again. That journey by car was the first of tens of thousands of miles we would travel by car with maps and sandwiches and kids....up and down the West Coast, back and forth across the United States. Always an adventure, never a dull moment.

We traveled with kids well before seat belts, car seats, private videos and bottled water. No vans, just station wagons that got 12 1/2 miles to the gallon and were crammed to the hilt with suitcases and other paraphernalia. Anywhere we drove, it was "Grapes of Wrath" re-visited.

We had a thought for a family car design: sleek and fuel-efficient, self-cleaning windows from the inside, and a loop tape that played "Sit back and stay on your side of the line,"We will be there when we get there," and " If you do that again we're stopping the car!"

When we married, Ruth was tall, sandy-haired, slim and green-eyed. I was tall, brown-haired, slim and hazel eyed. She is essentially the same, with hair color varying now and again. I, on the other hand, have grown quite round and hair has flown the coop. Maybe it was all those car trips with the window rolled down. The roundness of course is explained by the fact that food loves me.

Could not imagine that 44 years after the fact, I would reflect on these matters by means of a thing called a personal computer over a system called "the internet" through a mechanism called a blog. And, it is light years from a Chevrolet Corvair to a Toyota SUV. Washington DC in 2007 is a universe away from rural California in 1963.

If I thought the ride on the Blue Mountain Express was great with lush valleys, flowered hillsides, persistent switchbacks, steep gradients, and spectacular vistas...it's nothing compared to 44 years with Ruth.

I really had no idea it would turn into such an adventure, just trying to get away from Stan on the motorcycle.

What are we doing to celebrate our 44 years together? We leave in the morning for a bed and breakfast in the Tidewater area of Virginia.

We'll be driving.

Once Upon A Time......

Never thought I'd be a blogger...but have been persuaded to give it a go.

When reflecting on a page title, the first thing that popped into my mind was something to do with the Blue Mountain Express. No, it's not a quick-effect premium Jamaican coffee. It is a place and time from another world that shaped how I see the world and people and life.

World War II was won by the summer of 1945 and by fall the Foths--Oliver, Gwendolyn, Louanne, and Dick (that's me)---sailed out of New York harbor on the S.S. Gripsholm (a Swedish liner on its last troop-ferrying activity) for Alexandria, Egypt. From there, we embarked for India and the most formative 4 years of my life. I was three and a half.

We ultimately settled in the scorching plains of far South India in the city of Madurai, a bustling city of 500,000 then and millions now. Schools for Europeans were many miles to the northwest in the Nilgiri Hills (the Blue Mountains). To be more precise, about 300 miles. It was there that Louanne and I went, she first and then both of us. Coonoor was one of several beautiful and cool "hill stations" created after 1799 when the area was acquired by the East India Company in a treaty. It was--and is--the home of Hebron School.

Hebron was British and female to the core. So, my education began in an English girls boarding school, which--true to such traditions--accepted little boys until they reached 10 and became more fully aware of their surroundings. At that point, they were shipped out to Breeks, a boys school in Ooticumund, the "queen of the hill stations," 18 kilometers further up the mountain.
Hebron was my home from 1947 to 1949, except for a 3 month vacation each year with my family in the plains during the cooler season.

That education was an experience unto itself. That is for another time. It was the "how we got there" part that captured me. We went by train...steam train....engines made in Switzerland....open-windowed wooden railway carriages. It was, literally, the little train that could. The Blue Mountain Express.

The rail trip from Mettapalayum to Coonoor is 29 kilometers (about 19 miles). The train climbs to about 6,000 ft in that distance so it takes 3 hours. The gradients are steep, switchbacks many, and views breathtaking.

My dad wrote on January 16, 1947:

"I had promised Dick a ride in the front coach. The mountains are very steep, so the engine pushes the train up instead of pulling it....you can get a wonderful view of all the scenery as you come up. Dickie was quite thrilled by it, and it was a lovely sight. It was a clear sunshiney day and everything sparkled. There were lots of wildflowers out; wild canna lilies and morning glories, and the orange lantana are at their best now... there was a scarlet flower, about the size of a small morning glory, that trailed all over everything. The numberless waterfalls are very pretty right now, and many of them come down like ribbons dropping down hundreds of feet over the rock cliffs.

At the start of the journey on the plain, there are rice fields, sugar cane patches, banana groves (with bananas growing so close together that a person can scarcely squeeze between them). As you begin to ascend the mountains, you notice the huge growths of bamboo. Each one grows to a great height and thickness. Farther up at about 2,000 ft. their are coffee plantations everywhere, and then at about 4,500 ft. the tea plantations begin."

I didn't know about Hebron School, but the Blue Mountain Express (the slowest express in the world, no doubt!) captured my heart. Open rectangular windows...heads in, so as not to catch a cinder in the eye. It was gaggles of people in multi-colored saris and turbans; vendors hawking wares on train station platforms; the smell of curry and engine smoke. This is the train that put the wind in window. The higher the train chugged the cooler the air and the cooler the views. It was cooler than anything I had ever known.

The Blue Mountain Express remains for me to this moment a metaphor for adventure and learning. It is tea at 4 o'clock, British discipline, Indian beauty and richness, a dozen dialects, a hundred smells...and it just .....moves.

The Blue Mountain Express........ color and perspective on the journey.

All abooaard!