Farmer Patrick Rider with a newborn baby goat. (Photo by Lux Aeterna Photography)
Patrick Rider didn’t set out to run a livestock farm that supplies meat to fine dining restaurants and grocers. He simply wanted to provide healthy options for his family. “I didn’t want my family eating industrial food,” he said.
In 2003, Patrick and his wife, Thanya, began purchasing farmland in Meredith, a sleepy town in Upstate New York, nestled within the Catskill Mountains. Today, they own 400 acres and lease another 1,100. Patrick’s family has lived in the region for eight generations. In his childhood, Patrick’s chores included cutting hay, but he didn’t grow up raising animals.
The Greenane Farms restaurant is painted in colors inspired by Spanish Colonial architecture. (Photo by Lux Aeterna Photography)
A Family Farm
At one time, Patrick had a career in consulting that brought him to Mexico, where he met Thanya. As a couple, they decided to settle down in the lush, quiet area of the western Catskills where they now reside. When the Riders purchased the property, it was an empty field. They built the structures by hand and set everything up from scratch. From the beginning, Patrick resolved to grow vegetables and fruits without chemical pesticides. To this day, the farm’s livestock are also raised without antibiotics or hormones.
Patrick handles the animals with care. During a visit one July afternoon, he was preparing to move about a dozen cows to new pasture, but as the female cows began calling their calves, something suddenly spooked the animals—they didn’t want to budge. After some thinking, Patrick decided it was best to leave them be. He also noticed that a few cows were walking oddly, likely because they had lame legs. Sometimes they accidentally step into holes in the ground, burrowed by woodchucks, and hurt themselves, Patrick explained. He decided to leave those animals in the pen so they could get medical checkups.
Angus cows grazing in the field. (Photo by Lux Aeterna Photography)
At first, Patrick had only planned to produce enough food for his family, but as neighbors and restaurants kept inquiring about his products, the farm grew and grew. Today, Greenane Farms raises about 250 grass-fed Angus cattle in addition to pigs, chickens, quails, turkeys, goats, and sheep. The meat products are sold to restaurants and wholesale markets and are also available to neighbors via the farm store. Meanwhile, the produce goes to a local community-supported agriculture program—and into the farm restaurant’s offerings.
A Mexican Restaurant in the Catskills
The restaurant’s menu is composed of Thanya’s family recipes. There are dishes from her hometown of Mexico City and other places that her family hails from, such as the Baja region near California, and Hidalgo, the central Mexican state.
Family is part of the business at Greenane Farms, and 14 members of the family are employees. Cousins, nephews, nieces, and even Patrick Jr., Patrick’s 6-year-old son, all help out at the farm and restaurant, from feeding the animals to waitressing. Thanya said that while there are challenges to working with family, she treasures how everyone puts heart into their work. Everyone is “part of the project, part of the dream,” she said. In this part of rural New York, where there aren’t many Latin American families, many patrons experience traditional Mexican dishes for the first time while seated at the farm restaurant.
Patrick and Thanya with their daughter, Naomi, pose near the Greenane Farms restaurant. (Photo by Lux Aeterna Photography)
Thanya feels a big sense of responsibility in educating locals about the cuisine. She also values opportunities to “show pride about where we come from.” The most rewarding part of the endeavor is when people tell her they enjoy the food, she said. Some regular customers drive from one or two hours away to have dinner there. The restaurant, which is only open from May to November, is situated within a restored barn that was built in the late 1700s.
The Catskill Mountains are within view of the restaurant’s outdoor seating. On a clear day, the blue skies and verdant scenery make for an idyllic landscape. On a given evening, there may be a tractor parked in front, or one might find the Rider children and their relatives running around adorably dressed in Greenane Farms T-shirts with name tags attached. Eating at the restaurant is like being invited to a home-cooked meal. All meat and nearly all produce—save the tropical ingredients such as cacti, limes, and avocados—come from the farm.
Patrick Jr. with his sisters Naomi and Mérida, and two cousins. (Photo by Lux Aeterna Photography)
The restaurant’s specialty is a dish called “the volcano,” which originates from the state of Jalisco. It’s served in a molcajete (a traditional stone mortar made of volcanic rock) that arrives sizzling and overflowing with a variety of meats and vegetables—such as house-made chorizo, cactus, scallions, queso blanco, rice, Yukon potatoes, and jalapeño peppers. The ingredients sit in a bath of tangy salsa verde made with tomatillos. The chorizo is a highlight, piquant and spicy from guajillo peppers, but the meat is heftier than store-bought sausages—perhaps because it comes from heritage pigs.
The molcajete dish. (Photo by Lux Aeterna Photography)Enchiladas made according to Thanya’s family recipe. (Photo by Lux Aeterna Photography)
Thanya and her sisters also prepare a mole according to their family recipe, a labor-intensive task that takes two days. More than 30 ingredients go into the sauce, which is served with rice and a roasted Cornish hen. Thanya hopes that one day her children can take over the restaurant. “We’ll keep it simple,” she said.
“I love trees,” said the forester. His name is Cliff Foster, and I believe him.
But how does that square with the environmentalists’ view that foresters and loggers are chain-saw-wielding tree slashers who are only a few generations away from J. R. R. Tolkien’s orcs?
My view of loggers wasn’t that extreme, especially since my second great-grandfather owned the Brown Paper Company in Berlin, New Hampshire. But I had an uncomplimentary opinion of loggers that had developed many years before.
In 2007, when my wife and our four children and I lived in the countryside of Virginia, I wrote a column called “Loggers Who Lay Waste to Beauty.” In that essay, I wrote:
The first time we saw the desolation caused by their handiwork, we were driving down a road that we had traveled many times when suddenly we turned a corner and saw a vast expanse of broken tree stumps and piles of dirt, mixed with wood chips and underbrush. It had been a beautiful stretch of woods, inhabited, I’m sure, by a variety of now displaced creatures.
Our entire family’s collective jaws dropped to the bottom of the van as we slowly drove by a scene that reminded me of a World War I no man’s land battlefield. Ugly, tragic, and desolate didn’t even begin to describe it.
You can imagine how much we gnashed our teeth after that whenever we said the word “loggers.” Ugh! Ick! We were tree lovers and tree huggers, and in fact, we still are, living now in Maine, surrounded by lovely trees. We don’t hug them anymore because of ticks, but that’s another story.
My wife and I tend to shudder in dismay whenever we drive by a section of woods that developers are clearing away for new houses. Neither of us feels very good when we hear chain saws at work. But life is complicated, and there’s always another side to every story.
I began to pay attention to the tragedy of California’s wildfires that have not only devastated millions of trees but have laid waste to the homes and lives of both animals and humans.
In an article in American Greatness, titled “Environmentalists Destroyed California’s Forests,” Edward Ring writes (emphasis by author):
Year after year, environmentalists litigated and lobbied to stop efforts to clear the forests through timber harvesting, underbrush removal, and controlled burns. Meanwhile, natural fires were suppressed and the forests became more and more overgrown. The excessive biomass competed for the same water, soil, and light a healthier forest would have used, rendering all of the trees and underbrush unhealthy. It wasn’t just excess biomass that accumulated, but dried out and dead biomass.
Then, one day in Maine, I was talking to Cliff, who just happened to be a forester, and he mentioned “selective cutting,” a term that was new to me. I sat down with Cliff and heard him utter those magnificent words:
I love trees.
Of course, I should have known that a forester can love trees, but we don’t know what we don’t know, and that can cause tragedies in the world, including the devastation of wildfires in California. In my discussion with Cliff, I learned a great many things.
Cliff Foster has been working with trees for seventy-six years and has been a forester and forester consultant for almost that long. He started helping his father after WWII with a crosscut saw and a bucksaw. Cliff served in the Navy during the Korean War as an engineman on a destroyer escort and, in classic Navy fashion, met Ruth, his bride-to-be, at a roller skating rink in Hartford, Connecticut. He asked her if he could drive her home, and she said no. Very proper, for the era. But he persevered and married her, and now they have four grown sons.
After college, he joined the Maine Forestry Service in 1959, when he was twenty-eight. He worked his way up to the role of Southern Regional Director and then retired from the service after thirty years. During his tenure, he oversaw the planting of three million trees on three thousand acres of land.
Cliff began a forestry consulting business in 1986 called Timberstate G. Now retired, his son, Greg, manages the company, which creates forestry management plans for hundreds of private owners of timberland covering forty-thousand acres a year.
He told me that what I saw in Virginia was the result of “clear-cutting,” a practice that has been all but abandoned in Maine. It sometimes needs to be done with patches of woodland that have become diseased or have been invaded by insects that could spread. But generally, foresters in Maine use other methods.
Cliff promotes and uses a method called “selective cutting,” which involves individually selecting trees to be cut while leaving a large portion of the trees to continue their growth. It’s not done randomly. The best practice is to cut the weakest and poorest trees first, which will then be turned into pulp.
A few years later, the next round of cutting will be focused on the trees that are slightly better and larger that can be used for small planks and items like lobster traps—although now lobster traps are being made of steel.
The third level of cutting includes trees that will be turned into “saw timber”—hemlock and spruce for framing houses and high-quality pine for finish work.
One of Cliff’s methods is to let good trees grow for decades before they’re cut because big trees produce wooden planks that are wider. He showed me some piles of very wide planks on the second floor of his garage and pointed out that the highest quality planking is virtually free of knots.
A major benefit to selective cutting is that the health of the woods can be maintained. Deadwood and underbrush are removed, which promotes growth and protects the area from forest fires. I found his comments illuminating and on point:
If you have a garden, what’s one of the first things that you do in that garden after it gets growing? Weed. Pull the weeds. If you want to have a good garden, you have to get rid of the weeds. That’s what we do in the woods. It’s the same thing, essentially.
The other thing we do: to some degree, we can control the trees that come back. We’re talking about different species. It depends on the knowledge of the soil that is supporting those trees; what you can do with them.
I had never heard anyone say that forestry could be like gardening, and I loved the analogy. It’s the very opposite of what has been happening in California. Cliff had a lot to say about that and criticized the influence of organizations like the Sierra Club and the excessive regulations that grew from the environmental lobby. He stated that correct management of the California woods would have reduced underbrush, disease from insects, and ultimately fires.
In his opinion, the activists and legislators who worked to stop all cutting ended up harming far more trees than they saved from the loggers’ chain saws.
The environmentalist approach to saving trees created a terrible and tragic irony, especially to a professional woodsman like Cliff Foster, who can look at a forest and declare: “I love trees.”
Cliff Foster with a 121-year-old, 110-foot white pine tree. The tree is three feet in diameter and would fetch around $8,000 on the retail market when cut into planks. His son Greg might not cut it, because it has sentimental value. (Peter Falkenberg Brown)Cliff Foster with his son, Greg, who is now running their Timberstate G forestry consulting business. (Peter Falkenberg Brown)The Timberstate G sign at the entrance to a one-hundred-acre lot of timber. (Peter Falkenberg Brown)
Peter Falkenberg Brown is a writer, author, and public speaker. One of his recent books is titled “Waking Up Dead and Confused Is a Terrible Thing: Stories of Love, Life, Death, and Redemption.” He hosts a video and podcast channel called “The FalkenBrown Show” at his website peterfalkenbergbrown.com
Stephen Siller was a firefighter who rushed to the Twin Towers on September 11. (Courtesy of Tunnel to Towers Foundation)
On August 1, Frank Siller started walking. His route meticulously mapped out and with a couple thousand followers in his wake, the 68-year-old Staten Island resident laced up his sneakers (one of many pairs he packed for the 42-day jaunt) and set out on a 525-mile, six-state personal pilgrimage to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. His ultimate goal? To follow in the footsteps of the fallen.
“This isn’t only to honor my brother,” Siller said, referring to Stephen Siller, a member of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY), who raced into the World Trade Center after the first plane hit 20 years ago and never returned from the rubble. “I’m doing this to honor all of the 2,977 souls we lost on that day. On this 20th anniversary, I felt we needed something meaningful that would bring us back to the unity that we all felt in those moments and months after the towers fell,” Siller said in a recent interview.
Launching his quiet trek in front of the Pentagon, Siller set off from Washington, D.C., and traveled through Maryland and West Virginia, before paying his respects at the National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, located just two miles from where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed. He then journeyed through New Jersey, before he would complete his trip in New York City on the morning of September 11.
Frank Siller training to do his 525-mile walk to commemorate the 20th anniversary of September 11. (Courtesy of Tunnel to Towers Foundation)
“This is more than a walk; it’s a spiritual journey,” Siller relayed about a month before he left on his journey. “With every step I take, I’ll be thinking of my brother, and I know he’ll be with me. This journey very much aligns with our foundation’s motto: ‘While we have time, let us do good,’ taken from a Franciscan prayer. Our organization has accomplished a lot over these past two decades, but we have only scratched the surface. There is still so much good to be done.”
Helping Others
Siller is being humble. He serves as CEO of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a New York City-based organization for honoring the country’s military and first responders who continue to make the supreme sacrifice. His organization, which he founded with his siblings immediately after his brother’s death, has committed over $250 million to the families of military heroes and first responders over the past two decades.
In the wake of 9/11, Stephen Siller’s story became well-known: After finishing a night tour with Brooklyn’s Squad 1, he left the firehouse and was headed to a golf course to meet his brothers. When he got word over his scanner of a plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center, he called his wife, Sally, and asked her to tell his brothers he would be late.
Siller returned to Squad 1, picked up his gear, and drove his truck to the entrance of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. That main city artery had already been closed for security purposes, but Siller was determined to carry out his duty. So he strapped 60 pounds of gear to his back and raced on foot through the tunnel to get to the burning towers. His remains were never recovered.
Today, the foundation delivers more than 450 mortgage-free homes to gold-star families (those whose loved ones died while serving in the line of duty of military service) and catastrophically injured military veterans. Frank Siller has pledged to continue this charity in perpetuity—all in his brother’s name. This walk—and the goodwill that goes with it—is simply the culmination of two decades of philanthropy.
Officially established as a nonprofit in December 2001 by Stephen Siller’s widow and six siblings, the grassroots group started small, with the initial intention of helping children. Siller’s family would meet and toss ideas around for a golf outing, gala, or a 5-kilometer run that would raise funds for a local family in need. When a family friend suggested that the group host a road race that would symbolize the firefighter’s final heroic journey, Siller nearly collapsed with emotion.
“What my brother did on 9/11 was incredible,” Siller said. “I don’t know who else could have made such a sacrifice. Our marquee event—which essentially launched this foundation—was designed to commemorate his very last steps.”
In Stephen’s Name
The Tunnel to Towers race that bears his name, now in its 20th year, recreates Siller’s final run. More than 40,000 participants come out yearly to retrace his steps. Firefighters stand at attention and line the tunnel in Class A uniform, each one holding an American flag and a banner photo of one of the 343 FDNY members who died that day. For Frank Siller, it’s the most emotionally charged day of the year.
“When I watch the tens of thousands of participants gathering at the tunnel, see the West Point cadets running in cadence, it gets me every time,” Siller said. “More than 7,000 soldiers have died in the line of duty since 9/11 [in post-9/11 military operations]. This run is for them. This honors the sacrifice they all made.”
Tunnel to Towers has been recognized as a four-star organization by Charity Navigator, the nation’s largest and most utilized evaluator of charities, for practicing sound fiscal management, organizational efficiency, and program integrity. Keeping fundraising and administrative costs at a minimum, with only a small percentage of funds allocated to overhead expenses, the foundation’s Program Expense Ratio on average is 93 percent, meaning 93 cents out of every dollar goes directly to its programs and services. As chairman and CEO, Frank Siller is an uncompensated volunteer.
“We have been blessed with so many volunteers and so many generous donors,” Siller said. “People support our charity because our efforts are tangible—you can actually see where your money is going and who it is helping.”
Navy officer Austin Reese with his family, who benefited from the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. (Courtesy of Tunnel to Towers Foundation)
The Siller family certainly identifies with the importance of such charity: Both Siller parents died at a young age, leaving 8-year-old Stephen orphaned and in the care of his six older siblings.
“It wasn’t always an easy road but Stephen grew up to be an extraordinary individual and dedicated firefighter,” Siller said. “More than most, he knew that time was precious and accomplished much in his 34 years. He had everything to live for: a great wife, five wonderful children, a devoted extended family, and friends. Stephen’s life and heroic death serve as a reminder to us all to live life to the fullest and to spend our time here on earth doing good—this is his legacy.”
More to Go
Tunnel to Towers has greatly expanded since its inception, growing to include a range of humanitarian projects. Together with the help of benefactors like Home Depot and General Motors, the organization custom-builds specially adapted mortgage-free smart homes that help injured veterans and first responders reclaim their day-to-day independence.
Army sergeant Christy Gardner is an injured veteran who benefited from the foundation. (Courtesy of Tunnel to Towers Foundation)
The foundation also pays off the mortgages for families of law enforcement officers and firefighters who were killed in the line of duty. It provides the same benefit for military widows and children.
This year, the organization also hosted a Never Forget Concert. It continues to fund Towers of Light displays at the Pentagon and Flight 93 National Memorial held on every 9/11 anniversary. The group also pledged to pay off the mortgages of first responders who have died from 9/11-related illnesses and left behind young children.
Siller is now working to broaden the foundation’s reach: He’s asking Americans to donate $11 a month in hopes of funding homes for every military member and first responder who dies or is catastrophically injured in the line of duty. His ultimate goal? To reach 1 million monthly donors.
“I truly believe that God puts us on a certain path in life,” Siller concluded. “This is my path, and I don’t take it lightly. It’s our job to help as many families as we possibly can. I do this for my brother and for all of the men and women who died on 9/11—and all of our military who have made the supreme sacrifice since that day. We are good Americans taking care of the greatest Americans of all.”
Jessica Jones-Gorman launched her career in journalism at a New York City daily newspaper more than 20 years ago. She has worked a general news beat, covered fashion, and written countless features about people who inspire and lead.
Papadopoulos's historic house. (Courtesy of Fairview Farms)
On Nikolaos Papadopoulos’s house—located on the farm in Wilton, Connecticut that he operates, Fairview Farms—a plaque can be found on the facade, presented by the Wilton Historical Society at the beginning of 2021. On this plaque is the name James Vasale, the man who originally owned the property back in 1929.
The plaque is part of the Society’s Historic Marker Program, started over 20 years ago as an attempt to both encourage historical preservation as well as identify important historic structures. On occasion, the Society will also award plaques to homes not on the historic survey, as long as the age of the home can be verified and the integrity of the architecture has not been radically altered from its original appearance. These special instances are evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the Society’s Historic Preservation committee, a combination of select members of the Society’s board of trustees and staff.
In Papadopoulos’s case, his house was included in the 2018 Phase II of the survey, because it was, according to the Society, “a well-preserved example of an early 20th-century vernacular residence and, as such, it is significant as an example of Wilton’s stock of early-20th century houses.”
Purchased from the Vasale family in April 2020, Papadopoulos has come a long way in his farming ways. Calling himself the modern-day renaissance man, Papadopoulos’ ancestors were survivors of the Pontian Greek Genocide, the systematic killing of Ottoman Greeks during the early 20th century, and subsequently guerrilla warriors, as well as farmers and masons.
“We brought the farming traditions of the Old World in Pontos to Greece, and then to the United States, where I plan on expanding into upstate New York,” said Papadopoulos.
Papadopoulos’s historic house. (Courtesy of Fairview Farms)
Once a resident of Norwalk, Connecticut with his grandmother, Papadopoulos was kicked out of the apartment he was in, due to the chickens he was keeping in the backyard. His mother, Teresa, who was an agent for a real estate business in Wilton, was able to help find him the space.
Since this farm has been around since the late 1920s, Papadopoulos wanted to keep the original name, Fairview Farms, as he wanted to keep the integrity of the farm as much as possible. The farmhouse was built in 1929, with over 60 acres of land and had consisted of 10,000 chickens and Black Angus cows.
In addition, there is a cottage on the property that was built in 1931 and is rented out. It started off in 1930 as a “club house,” where the owner would spend time with friends and play cards.
The stone house next to the cottage belongs to the niece of the original owner, where she still lives. The original spread has been split up into multiple properties.
When he lived with his grandmother, space was a bit tight living in the middle in the city. He needed a space large enough for his chickens and the possibility of growing his feathered family.
Papadopoulos explained that having good neighbors who understood what he was doing made a difference. When the time came to expand, his mother was there, determined to find the right amount of land to open all kinds of possibilities. Papadopoulos described this as a new beginning for him.
However, with the age of the house came lots of TLC, but it was not to be feared, as he had family in the construction business. Together, they were able to complete all the work.
The American flag outside his front door has 48 stars representing the continental 48 states, as it is from the 1930s and has been at the house since it was built. Papadopoulos believes in keeping the original integrity of the house and has been preserving the exterior.
Today, Papadopoulos has over 100 animals on his farm ranging from chickens to roosters, three peacocks, quails, ducks, three dogs, and a rescue horse named Cali.
Roosters and chickens roaming on the farm. (Courtesy of Fairview Farms)
Cali is from Devils Garden, California, which is how she got her name. She was rounded up by the state of California due to an overpopulation of wild horses in the area caused by the wildfires.
“The intention of the state was to put her down, but an organization called All the King’s Horses stepped in and reached her and several more, bringing them to Connecticut to find a home,” said Papadopoulos. “I plan on getting another mustang from them soon to give her a buddy, as horses are happier in herds.”
In the future, Papadopoulos plans on purchasing a bigger space for himself and his family, while renting or leasing his current space to someone else who is interested in farming in the area.
With that many animals, it is safe to say that more space will be needed.
In addition, he will be getting a barn cat—particularly, a black Cornish rex; sheep; and very specifically, Black Iberian pigs, for meat. Other plans in the works include adding a family stand where patrons can buy farm goods, paying with an honor system; selling flowers; and setting up a small greenhouse on the property.
“I have always wanted to work with animals, as it started with a flock of chickens and ducks and expanding from there. My family has been very supportive during this time,” said Papadopoulos.
Arthur Muir (L) with Sherpa guide Pasang Bhote. (Courtesy Arthur Muir)
Arthur Muir is nonchalant about the record he holds as the oldest American to climb Mount Everest at age 75. He reached the summit of the world’s highest peak on May 23 of this year, not while eying the glory of breaking a record, but rather with the humble yet steady thought of achieving a treasured personal goal.
Muir lives in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook. He worked as a lawyer for more than 35 years—not as a professional or lifelong mountain climber. Only two of the five highlights of his life involve mountain climbing.
He revealed a key to his way of thinking, as well as to his lifetime achievements, when expressing his plan to retitle his standard public speaking presentation for groups. Originally titled “It’s Not About Success, It’s About Effort,” Muir changed it to, “It’s Not About the Summit, It’s About the Effort.” He believes firmly in the value of aspirational goals—goals that we may or may not achieve—because they get people to take steps forward and generate self-discovery through the journey.
He scaled other peaks prior to conquering Mount Everest and trained intensively for his attempt to reach its top.
“Anybody that does this has to be really lucky—and they have to have really good support,” Muir noted with characteristic modesty.
Dreams Deferred
“I grew up in Colorado, a state with some mountains,” Muir said. “We used to go out once in a while and do some climbing, so I was used to some of what we call ‘mountaineering’—not the rock climbing with the ropes and all that stuff; didn’t do that.
“And then I didn’t do anything: I went to school. I was in the army for three years. And then I went back to business school. Then I went to law school in Chicago—which is how I ended up here. I love Chicago. It’s just a great place to live. But I sat behind a desk, you know, like many people do, doing my job talking on the phone all the time.”
In 1990, Muir saw an ad for an expedition where trekkers could accompany a team to a Mount Everest base camp. “I’ve always been interested in Mount Everest. I’ve had an interest ever since I was really young—and so I signed up for that and took that trip.” He climbed up to 21,500 feet, to the Advanced Base Camp on the recently opened north face of Mount Everest in Tibet. “That gave me a taste for this,” he said. In 1991, he went to Denali in Alaska, where he attempted to climb the tallest mountain in North America—no one from his group finished the climb.
And then he stopped mountain climbing because of work and family, raising three children.
“So I basically left that scene, even though it was pretty exciting,” he said.
Volcanoes in Ecuador
In 2013, Muir’s friend Jim called and asked him to come along on a trip to Ecuador, where they would climb volcanoes. “All those years I hadn’t done anything—I just sat behind a desk—the only thing I did was lift up the phone, and that was all my exercise,” Muir said.
Muir thought it was going to be easy. But reality hit once he saw the climb in person. “You ever look at a volcano?” he said. “It’s really steep—they’re 45 degrees there—it’s like walking up a ladder for a long time, in the snow, in the air. It’s hard, and the wind’s blowing and snowing.”
Together, the duo climbed two volcanoes, Cayambe and Cotapoxi.
“It was hard—it was really hard,” Muir said. “But here’s the thing: So what I found out was that I enjoyed it, even though you’re really uncomfortable. You’re cold, you’re wet. It’s hard work. It’s really steep. You get to the top, the wind’s blowing, you’re up there—and you’re thinking, ‘Well, this is all pretty neat.’
“Looking down in the fumarole of a volcano that’s got smoke coming out thinking, ‘Oh, this is pretty exciting’—you’re way above the clouds, and you can sit, you climb at night to the sun cup—it’s all very exciting, actually. That’s pretty special in a world where I spent all my time sitting behind a desk.”
From that point, Muir decided that he wanted to attempt the highest peak on each of the seven continents, including Denali in North America, Everest in Asia, Aconcagua in South America, and Elbrus in the European part of Russia. With a guide, he climbed Elbrus and skied back down. “So that was just so much fun to be able to do that. I mean, holy smokes! One of the world’s Seven Summits,” he said.
Arthur Muir rappelling in the Ice Fall on Mount Everest. (Courtesy Arthur Muir)
In 2016, he attempted to climb Shishapangma in Tibet. The expedition didn’t reach the top, but Muir gained more experience. “That was really fun—a hard climb,” he said.
Next was Denali. Muir’s son Charlie told him that they should climb Denali together. Muir said of the experience: “We ended up climbing that together, and stood on the top together, which is one of the five highlights of my life. One was marrying my wife, two of them are taking each of my two daughters walking down the aisle when they got married. Fourth one was fantastic Denali with my son Charlie, and the fifth one is standing on top of Mount Everest. So those are the five highlights.”
Muir also climbed Aconcagua. From his retirement in 2014, he took one or two expeditions every year until 2020. He also took ice-climbing courses in Colorado and eventually felt ready to try climbing Mount Everest, the top of which he had glimpsed back in 1990 on his journey to the Advanced Base Camp. “I thought I could never climb the mountain, because the mountain itself was way up there, another 8,000 feet,” he said.
But over the years, Muir’s skill set had improved, though his age was beginning to become a factor. “I was kind of fighting the age thing, you know, because now I’m getting to the point where it’s a little silly to be doing some of these things, most people would think, but I had a plan, and I’ve been very fortunate,” he said, referring to his climbs at Denali, Aconcagua, and Elbrus. “I was feeling pretty competent, and the other thing was, I had a really great support team.”
Muir had doctors and coaches working with him, while his family and friends were supportive. However, many of them “were very skeptical—with good reason, right?” he said. “Who wouldn’t be skeptical of a grandfather who says he wants to climb Mount Everest? I’d be skeptical, too. I was skeptical—I still am skeptical.”
Muir also realized that one aspect of his job as a lawyer served as mental training for mountain climbing as well. “I was doing corporate finance, which meant big loans to companies,” he said. The documents were long and uninteresting. Going over them was tedious, and it required hours upon hours of focus. “And that was really helpful to me, because I could focus for a really long time on the task at hand.” The experience translated well to climbing up and down Everest.
“But on the mountain, I can say I didn’t make any mistakes, which is remarkable considering I took tens of thousands of steps—so that was a huge part of my success,” Muir said.
Learning From Failure
Muir had scheduled a climb up Mount Everest in 2019, but received a call from his coach before his departure, advising him that he wasn’t ready. “But I’ve already paid for it,” Muir said. “Well, that may be, but you’re not ready,” his coach replied.
“And guess what—he was right. I went there—and I saw the mountain and I thought, ‘You know, this is a big, high, cold, windy, dangerous place, and I’m not sure I’m ready for this’—and it turned out I wasn’t, and I actually got hurt.”
He was crossing the Khumbu Icefall, a dangerous spot where snow and ice converge from the mountain above. As he walked the horizontal ladder that climbers use to cross it, he slipped and twisted his ankle, ending that attempt at climbing Everest. “I wasn’t physically strong enough, and I wasn’t mentally strong enough,” he said. In the attempt, he got only as far as Camp 2 of the four higher camps on Mount Everest. But he went there, got a taste of it, and gained a clearer understanding of what it would take.
The CCP virus (COVID-19) pandemic put a stop to all expeditions in 2020, so Muir had two years to train. “I worked really hard. I would exercise every single day, and [my coach] would give a very demanding exercise schedule that will take between two to sometimes five hours of exercise, basically every day for two years,” he said.
Muir also had to rehab from shoulder surgery, which alone would take one and a half hours of exercise every day for 15 months. He did exercises “designed to basically teach your body to maintain the ability to do output, do work, for a long period of time,” he said. This type of training contrasts with training for sports like football or basketball that require intense bursts of energy followed by brief periods of rest.
Arthur Muir lifting a barbell in his home gym in his Northbrook, Ill. garage. (Sam Wang)
“Mountain climbing is completely different. It’s sustained effort over a long period of time. So you have to be able to control your heart rate—so you’re really efficient. You have to have the strength to do this for a long time—one of the days was 13 hours of climbing,” Muir said. Many days required nine hours or more of climbing.
“It’s a long time to be climbing over things and down things and stepping around crevices and not falling off the trail and stuff. But the point is this training—they work really hard to train your body to be really efficient—and you can see the difference between climbers who hadn’t had that training, and those who had. Those who didn’t have that kind of training would basically start off putting a lot of effort and a lot of energy out, and then just collapse and basically run out of energy.”
2021 Expedition
“I had doctors. I had coaches. I had family. I had friends,” Muir said, referring to his team supporting him pre-climb. He also had a team of guides, Sherpas, and fellow climbers with him during the climb.
Because of unruly weather, the expedition got stuck at Camp 3, with snow blowing into their tents and threatening to cover them. Later, the wind was howling at 10 p.m. when they left Camp 4 with headlamps blazing. At one point, Muir was looking up at the others ahead of him, “and it was like looking up an elevator shaft—I felt like these people were right above me, it was so steep,” he said.
Muir was working his way up the lines, knowing he had been doing it for a long time when he saw a line of light in the east: “We all know dawn, it’s a nice time of the day. But this was really special, because now I know we’re gonna make it through the night. Then the sun comes up and you start to see—drop the headlamp and you start to see the thing.”
As the morning progressed, Muir reached a point where he could see the summit. “That was the most wonderful thing, because I knew I was going to climb Mount Everest. The emotion for me at that point was much more so than on the summit. I thought, ‘I’m actually going to get to the top of Mount Everest,’” he said.
Muir reached the top, but didn’t stay long. “I was tired, but I wasn’t exhausted—but I knew I had reserves. I knew there was more, I knew I was in control, and I was keeping track. That’s because I didn’t want to die up there, okay. So pretty simple, actually, I wanted to come home—and so I started down right away,” he said.
It wasn’t until after arriving at their base camp that Muir fully grasped his accomplishment. “Then the emotions of the whole thing really hit me. I realized that I’d done something I dreamed about for all those years—prepared for all those years—and then, after that, it was more business, you know, it was a job to get down safely—don’t make any mistakes,” he said.
Humble and Thankful
After his failed 2019 attempt, Muir developed a realistic and appreciative approach. “I just wanted to see what the mountain would give me—so I think age gives you the perspective to realize you’re not going to go out and change the world,” he said. “When you’re my age, you realize things are a certain way, and you’re just lucky to be here and to be healthy enough to try these things. But my attitude was so different—I was so intimidated by the mountain in 2019. I’m still intimidated by the mountain because it’s big, it’s really scary, it’s really dangerous—a lot of bad things can happen.
“But I have more come to terms with it. I understand how this mountain and I have a relationship. I understand I got to be respectful of it—got to be attentive. There [are] no guarantees, but that’s a good working relationship. You know, I’m not trying to dominate, conquer, trample you—that sort of thing. And I think you come away with an appreciation for the mountain, and for the culture of the people who live their appreciation.”
Muir spoke about the humility and gratitude of the people living on either side of Mount Everest: the Nepalese people and the Tibetans. “They’re humble. They’re thankful for what they have. They don’t have a lot, but they’re very appreciative. They’re friendly. They’re strong, to live the life they live. You have to admire them.”
Arthur Muir back home in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook, Ill. (Sam Wang)
As for future aspirations, Muir mentioned skiing off the top of Mont Blanc in France; hiking, biking, and kayaking across Costa Rica from the Atlantic to the Pacific; maybe climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with his son; and maybe climbing the remaining Seven Summits. “But there’s always some things to do—it’s just a recognition at my age that the window is closing in just a little bit. Life is precious, it’s valuable, and you need to enjoy it,” he said.
Lessons to Pass On
“My message for older adults is to get out there and do exercise—but find somebody who really knows what they’re doing—and move some weight around,” Muir said. “I’m talking about exercise that pushes your body in a sustained way, trying to give it higher and higher stimulus over a long period of time—and particularly weights, whether those are dumbbells, kettlebells, or barbells.”
Muir has a message for people of all ages as well.
“I told my three kids, as I told my grandchildren that are old enough to understand, I think it’s really important to have dreams in life,” he said. “I think it’s really important to set goals—and especially goals that are called aspirational ones, that you think you may never achieve—and the reason for that is because when you have a dream, if you actually pursue it and commit to it, you’ll start to take the steps that get you closer to it. And it’s not really important, it actually isn’t important if you achieve it—that’s not really the point of it. It’s a point of self-discovery, of the journey you go through. But the point is that if you don’t have that dream, you never move off of the starting position—and so it’s really important to have those. You know, most of the things that come to us in life that are worthwhile come because we put in a lot of effort. Sometimes you’re lucky, but you know, counting on luck to do it isn’t going to do it.”
Most of us have felt it at some point in our life. The wind streaming past our cheek, the feeling of freedom, the adrenaline that accompanied our headlong rush into the speed of the race. It might have happened when we were four or five, as we screamed in delight as we ran across our lawn, chased by a parent. It might have been at age 18, as I experienced when I ran two miles a day. The experience of running was glorious for many of us, even though it was too often cut short by the duties and complexities of life.
When one works from morning till night and drives home to the duties of family life, it’s quite hard to find the time or desire to put on our running shoes, drive to our running spot, run until we’re exhaustifried, drive home, take a shower (one hopes) and then, perhaps, relax.
Wally Johns would disagree. He’s 71 years old, and he runs three times a week, swims twice a week, and bikes three times a week. He’s training for his next 26.2-mile marathon in Chicago in October, 2021.
Wally has been running for 49 years when he got out of the Navy at age 22. That’s not as long ago as 490 BC when the Greek soldier Pheidippides ran from the Battle of Marathon to Athens to report their victory over the Persians. But it’s still a respectable amount of time, considering the fact that he’s been running ever since.
When he was 26, he impressed his girlfriend, Janet, and astounded her father when he ran seven miles to her house, took a shower, and then escorted her out on a date. Janet’s father watched them go and murmured something like, “Who is this guy?”
Wally Johns and his daughter Diana competing in a sprint triathlon in Newport Beach, California in 2004. Courtesy of Wally Johns)
I suppose that if Wally had heard him, he might have grinned and flung an answer over his shoulder that he was just a guy who loved to run. And love to run, he does.
His first formal competition was in 1978, at the Chicago Distance Classic, a 20-kilometer run through downtown. Thousands attended. Wally was 28 years old, and he was hooked. His first triathlon was in 1984, and he discovered that competitively swimming, biking, and running were things that he could do—and do well.
Over the years, he’s run in seven Ironman triathlons. One has to be in shape for those, but Wally has proven, hands-down, that you don’t have to be young to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and then run 26.2 miles, in that order, all in less than a day. He ran his last Ironman in 2009 when he was 59 years old.
Never a quitter, he continued running the Ironman 70.3, also known as the Half Ironman, consisting of a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run. He won first place in his age group (65 to 69 at the time) in 2015 in the 70.3 Arizona race. He’s won his age group in many local races and qualified to race in the Ironman 70.3 world championship in 2015 in Australia. He also qualified for the International Triathlon Union’s “Sprint World Championship” in 2020 in Edmonton, Canada.
Wally Johns with his daughters Maryann and Diana at the Hippoty Hop Half Marathon and 10K Run in Peoria, Arizona, Easter week, 2021. (Courtesy of Wally Johns)
Wally is a perfect example of a person who defeated the “I’m tired after sitting at my desk all day, so, sorry, I can’t run today” syndrome. We won’t discuss my status in that regard. Wally had no time for such non-marathony excuses, even though he spent an entire career as a financial analyst, first for Motorola and then for ON Semiconductor.
After peering at numbers all day, he would run. Now retired and living in Arizona, he gets up at 4 a.m. and runs before Arizona’s summer heat takes hold. He’s cheered on by his wife, Janet, also a native of Chicago. When I asked Wally how Janet, who is also active in sports, felt about the time he spent in competition, he passed on her vote of confidence:
I’m proud of Wally doing seven Ironmans. He’s a role model to our daughters to live a healthy lifestyle. Also, it’s better than sitting in a bar.
One really can’t argue with that. How many financial analysts have raised two daughters to compete with their father in triathlons? Wally is training with his 36-year-old daughter, Maryann, to run together in the October marathon in Chicago. He and his eldest daughter, Diana, have also run in a variety of triathlons and running races.
Triathlons haven’t always been easy for Wally. He’s had two foot surgeries and three knee surgeries. But he keeps going. I asked him why, and he said:
First of all, I do it because I like it. I like staying in shape. When we were in Acadia National Park in 2021, I climbed up Beehive, which is a fairly tough hike. You’re pulling yourself up on rungs embedded in the rocks … It’s hard to push yourself if you don’t like it.
I asked him about getting in the fabled “runner’s zone,” and he replied:
The most vivid memory I have of one of those is going for a run in the forest reserves of Chicago. It was snowing, and I was running on the path. I remember running out. And when I was coming back, mine were the only footprints in the snow. I was like, “It was an easy 10 -mile run!” It was like it was nothing. It was totally quiet in the snow.
When I was a teenager, I watched the 1962 movie “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” with Tom Courtenay. I thought perhaps that Wally might have found his running a rather isolated activity, but he stated that his years of running have given him tremendous benefits.
He meets people all the time and belongs to a variety of sports clubs. He’s traveled extensively, competing across the country. He’s healthy, he’s fit, and his confidence that he can be active is solid. He receives tremendous enjoyment from swimming, biking, and running.
Wally Johns is an enduring reminder to Those Who are Sedentary (I won’t mention me) that you don’t have to be young to run.
Peter Falkenberg Brown is a writer, author, and public speaker. One of his recent books is titled “Waking Up Dead and Confused Is a Terrible Thing: Stories of Love, Life, Death, and Redemption.” He hosts a video and podcast channel called “The FalkenBrown Show” at his website peterfalkenbergbrown.com
"A Country Home" by Henry Shapleigh, Arlington, Mass., 1866. Oil on canvas. Bequest of Amelia Peabody.
Historic New England is the largest regional heritage organization in America today. Founded in 1910, it was the earliest organization of its type with a focus on the preservation and continued use of properties of historic significance. Historic New England aims to educate the public on their archives and collections and engage in public outreach by establishing house museums—working with homeowners and communities to protect buildings and landscapes.
With a collection of over a million records of photographs, homes, paintings, objects, sculptures, and documents, Historic New England has been able to tell the most complete story of how New Englanders lived from the 17th century to today. There are over 6,500 works of fine art housed across the New England states. Recognizing the importance of their collection, and to engage with the public, “Artful Stories” has brought together works from ten different house museums as well as a number of works from Historic New England’s storage.
The exhibition is held at the historic Eustis Estate in Milton, Massachusetts—a jewel of late-19th-century American architecture built in 1878. The estate was designed by William Ralph Emerson, prominent American architect and cousin of transcendentalist American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. Not only was Emerson of the eponymous family, he was a close friend of leading Boston painter William Morris Hunt, and he collaborated with American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. It was a time of cultural renaissance in America, when bronze foundries produced full-scale works on American soil for the first time, and the cities were filling with Neoclassical architecture.
Eustis Estate, Milton, Mass. Public Domain.
Curated by Nancy Carlisle (Historic New England’s Senior Curator of Collections) and Peter Trippi (European art historian and editor-in-chief at Fine Art Connoisseur), “Artful Stories” explores regional stories told through art. Rather than simply showcasing Historic New England’s best paintings and sculptures, the curators selectively chose artists, portraits, and settings to give the artwork and theme a larger sense of context. As Carlisle noted, the experience of curating a show like this reveals new information every time you scratch at the surface of history.
The exhibition was well planned, but just as society had to contend with the pandemic lockdowns, so did “Artful Stories.” They quickly pivoted to online programming and immersive 360-degree videos. Karla Rosenstein, the site manager of the Eustis Estate, shared that “from the beginning, we had planned to utilize the interactive touchscreens to add extra multimedia materials to ‘Artful Stories,’ so we luckily had already been developing some online content for the exhibition.” As it became clear that they would not be able to open up as scheduled, they wanted to provide an online preview that was a full version of the exhibition. “While working from home, we created a far more robust version than we had initially planned” added Rosenstein.
“Homeward Bound” by John George Brown, New York, 1878. Oil on canvas. Gift of Ralph May.
The curators chose to present the works in a variety of themes across four galleries. The first gallery, “Land & Sea,” is a survey of the historical geography of New England. The second gallery, “At Home in New England,” showcases how and why the people of New England came to settle there, while the third gallery, “New England’s People,” reveals the cast of characters involved. The fourth gallery, “Wide World,” is about how the New Englanders interacted with people and places outside their region.
Unlike other exhibitions that would source works from outside their collection, Rosenstein noted, “it was very fortunate that this show was entirely from Historic New England’s collection as we did not need to negotiate date changes with other institutions.” The gallery was open to in-person visits in October 2020 and welcomed small groups of visitors to enjoy the exhibit. “We had a good number of members eager to attend it and get back into our museums,” added Rosenstein. “We also found ways to pivot our planned programming online and hosted a series of conversations between the curators and scholars, artists, and other curators that was attended by far more people than we would have expected in person.”
The show is full of interesting distinctions—a striking, perfect copy of Vigée LeBrun’s self portrait was a surprise for Carlisle. “The copy of Vigée’s portrait was by Elizabeth Adams, an artist about whom we knew nothing. During our research, we discovered who she was and the lengths she went to receive professional training.”
Copy of “Self-Portrait of Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun” by Elizabeth Adams, Florence, Italy, 1865–74. Oil on canvas. Gift of the artist’s nephew, Boylston Adams Beal.
As our collective American [MISSING NOUN] shifted so much throughout 2020, this allowed the curators to examine some of the asymmetries of the past, confronting the history of race and social class through the lens of today. Two such landscape paintings are hung in the first gallery, “Land & Sea.” One painting is a tight, Hudson-River-School-influenced panorama by the son of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, while the other is a pure Barbizon, Romantic landscape by an African-American barber who had to strive for his training as a painter. On these two paintings, Peter Trippi noted “the contrast between the landscapes painted by Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow and his neighbor (on the wall), Edward Mitchell Bannister—what different life journeys they had, but they both ended up being talented painters flourishing in New England at the same time!” Truly, one of the most important aspects of representational painting is its ability to transcend setting and social class and rely on truth, skill, and beauty.
Left: “View of Boston Across the Flats” by Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow, Boston, 1876. Oil on canvas. Gift of D. Codman. Right: “Woman Reading Under a Tree” by Edward Mitchell Bannister, probably R.I., 1880–85. Oil on canvas.
Throughout the show, there are a number of thoughtful arrangements and connections made that came to light through their research. In gallery four, “Wide World,” there is a wall which showcases not only the talent and skill of the artists, but the ingenuity and distinction of the American art patrons during the late 19th century. One is a portrait painting of Richard Norton by Italian artist Antonio Mancini. Hanging next to it is Edward Burne-Jones’ portrait of Sara Norton, Richard’s sister. These two paintings couldn’t be more stylistically distinct; Edward Burne-Jones was a Pre-Raphaelite, a classicist in the truest sense of the word, and Mancini an innovator, regarded by American artist John Singer Sargent as the greatest living painter of the time.
Left: “Richard Norton” by Antonio Mancini, Rome, c. 1905. Oil on canvas. Bequest of Susan Norton, the sitter’s daughter. Right: “Sara Norton” by Edward Burne-Jones, London, 1884. Oil on canvas. Bequest of Susan Norton, the sitter’s niece.
The simple fact that these two now hang side-by-side in contrast to each other displays the power of patronage—allowing the artists to fully express their vision of the subject, rather than attempting to impose their own aesthetics onto their likeness. This is further driven home by their accompanying painting on the wall, “St. Servan Harbor” by Edward Darley Boit. Best remembered as the patron who commissioned John Singer Sargent to paint his four daughters (housed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston), Boit was also an accomplished painter in his own right.
“St. Servan Harbor” by Edward Darley Boit, Dinard, Brittany, France, 1882. Oil on canvas. Gift of Dorothy S. F. M. Codman.
Throughout the exhibition, there are multimedia opportunities to learn more about the various artists and subjects. For those residing outside of New England, the website offers one of the most complete possible viewing experiences online. “Artful Stories” is both a truthful retelling of the Northeast’s history and an important chapter in cultural preservation, which Historic New England continues to champion. The exhibit has been extended until October 17th, 2021.
Engraving of a scene from the works of William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, circa 1590-1592. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” the story of a man’s choosing a loud and troublesome but rich and beautiful girl for his wife and “taming” her destructive misbehavior, has been for centuries a favorite of audiences. But it has now fallen on hard times. This happened when feminism was converted from the idealism of equal rights for women into resentment for the supposed perennial oppression of women by men.
As a result of that intellectual wind, those who did still want to produce the play would doctor the ending by going against the grain of the text to show Katherine making a mere show of obedience. She would deliver her final speech with ironic winks to the audience, suggesting that she had learned to pretend to be obedient to Petruchio but, in reality, was secretly manipulating him. The whole idea of “taming” her was thus turned into farce, and the resentful in the audience were given a satisfying inversion of power roles to take home with them to justify their resentment.
The unfortunate byproduct of that kind of production was that the audience was robbed of the possibility of experiencing the great reversal that Shakespeare actually dramatized in the play. The reversal I mean is not the mere subduing of Katherine’s will under the power of Petruchio and her consequent surrender to his government. Shakespeare meant that power play to be not a goal of Petruchio but merely a tool to achieve what he really wanted. What Petruchio really wanted was what was best for both of them: harmony, a happy union of man and wife. In short, love.
Portraying a Higher Goal
How does Shakespeare portray the achievement of that higher goal? In three ways.
First, Shakespeare doesn’t have Petruchio simply cudgel Katherine into obedience. (In the old joke that was one of the play’s sources, a husband wrapped his wife in a mule’s skin and beat her with a stick.)
Instead, Petruchio shows Katherine what it looks like when someone is being irrational, as was Katherine’s habit. His version of her irrational willfulness produces chaos, causes her to suffer, to go hungry and sleepless. It’s how every parent must train a self-damaging, willful child: “Here is what your behavior looks like and leads to. Do you want that?”
Second, Shakespeare has Petruchio enact this irrationality as if for Katherine’s own sake. He tosses away the food she hungers for because, he says, it’s not cooked as well as she deserves; rips apart the beautiful tailor’s gown as not good enough for her; creates havoc in the bedroom, all “in reverend care of her.” He “kills her in her own humor” by seeming to “kill her with kindness,” countering her selfish willfulness with an equal but opposite selfless willfulness.
The irony, for the audience, is that though Petruchio is creating actual havoc, keeping Katherine miserable in the name of serving her, in reality, he is doing this for her sake. Because in fact, her only path to peace and happiness is the giving up of her own selfish will. Once she has done that, there is no more power struggle; they can live happily ever after.
Rejection of Power Struggle
Finally, Shakespeare dramatizes the achievement of the goal of love with a wonderful rejection of the power-struggle image of marriage in favor of an image of mutual love. It comes after Katherine is fully subdued to Petruchio’s will. She has already called the sun the moon and an old man young because her husband commands her to do so.
When the other wives refuse to come at their husbands’ call, Petruchio commands Katherine to force the other wives to obey. She does so and then gives her great speech about the hierarchy of duty and the division of labor that must prevail in marriage at its best. The husband is stronger than the wife, but his duty is to use his strength not to oppress her but to defend and care for her, just as her duty is to care for him as best she can and to be grateful.
But here’s Shakespeare’s kicker. At the end of the speech, Katherine offers to place her hand beneath Petruchio’s foot as a symbol of her true obedience to him. And what does Shakespeare have Petruchio do? Step on her hand and crow “Ha! I’ve won! I’m stronger than you and will now oppress you freely!”? No. He says: “Why there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.” (“Wench” is a term, and “Kate” a nickname, of endearment.)
What does that kiss mean? Not the triumph of power over weakness, but the joy of mutual love. Now that both members of the pair are in their right relation to one another in the hierarchy created for their mutual benefit, neither one combating against the other in willfulness but each committed to the other’s good—now they can live happily ever after.
Isn’t this a better image of marriage than the confrontation between two strugglers for power?
The BPOE or “The Elks,” began in 1867 as the “Jolly Corks,” a group of actors and entertainers bent on having fun while at the same time avoiding a New York Excise Tax on alcohol. The group got their name for the clever, “ sleight of hand” trick performed with corks, which was used on the uninitiated to separate them from their drinking money. As inauspicious as their beginnings may have been, The Elks has grown into an organization of some million members, with nearly 2,000 Lodges. The organization is known to have given billions of dollars for disaster relief, disabled children, charitable causes, and veterans organizations.
Happy veterans and children share a moment and a special “catch” at the latest Elks-Veterans event in Hemet, Calif. (Courtesy of The Elks)
In 1917, with the world at war, then-“Grand Exalted Ruler (the head of all Elkdom), Edward Rightor appointed a committee to study what The Elks could do for the war effort. Past Grand Exalted Ruler, John K. Tenor recommended, “That the Elks give first consideration to the sick and wounded (American soldiers) on the battlefields of France and equip base hospitals for their care: that the Order create a fund for war relief work.” That recommendation was the genesis of the country’s first VA Hospitals.
The Elks are still helping veterans while also aiding many other sectors of society. Current Elks programs include:
“The hoop shoot” which helps develop what The Elks calls “gritty kids.” This program is a free-throw program for youth ages 8-13. Next year marks the 50th anniversary of The Elks program’s national Hoop Shoot. On April 30, 2022, 72 national finalists will step up to the line at the Wintrust Arena, a new state-of-the-art, 10,000-seat facility in downtown Chicago. The arena is home to the WNBA’s Chicago Sky and DePaul University’s Blue Demons. The 2022 finalists will step up to the same line as some of basketball’s greatest players.
Scholarships: The Elks has awarded almost One-and-a-half million dollars in “Legacy Scholarships” for the year 2021 alone.
Community Investments: Through the years, The Elks has awarded millions of dollars in “Beacon Grants,” “Gratitude Grants” and “Spotlight Grants.”
Drug Abuse Awareness: Through the “Kids Zone,” The Elks utilize a dedicated army of volunteers who freely give their time and talent and who are committed to eliminating the use and abuse of illegal drugs. As it says in the online “Kids Zone, “… the Elks believe that in order to ensure a bright future for our country, it is essential that our children be raised in a drug-free environment.”
Veterans Services: For more than a century, The Elks have pledged “So long as there are veterans, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks will never forget them.” The Elks National Veterans Service Commission takes that pledge one step further by promising services to our nation’s veterans and military members, with a special focus on service to those in need.
Thousands of Elks volunteers generously give their time, energy and resources to serve veterans and military members each day, to ensure that pledge is not an idle one. The Elks provide direct services to veterans nationally at more than 33 facilities each month, helping veterans rehabilitate and thrive through adaptive sports programs and therapy kits. The “Welcome Home” initiative is reaching out to some of the nation’s most vulnerable veterans: those who are experiencing homelessness.
A case in point of the commitment of The Elks to our nation’s veterans is the small but significant fishing trip that took place in the town of Hemet, California on a recent beautiful Saturday morning.
Support shown by the Oceanside Senior Anglers. (Courtesy of The Elks)Young Tervor Lynds showing of “The catch of the day,” at the Elks-Veterans fishing expedition. (Courtesy of The Elks)
Hemet Elks Veterans Chairman Jim Winget, who devised the event, noted that it was an unqualified success. “The Elks always ban together to help honor our veterans and this event was no exception. The Hemet Elks paid $3900 for the boat itself, while the Yucaipa Lodge paid an additional $400 for food and the Southeast District, of which Hemet and Yucaipa are a part, added an additional $400 for food. More than 60 fish were caught and the veterans and their families had a wonderful time.”
Just some of the happy anglers at a recent Elks event. (Courtesy of The Elks)
Navy Veteran Derrick Davis was very pleased by the turnout. “We were all very appreciative of the gesture by The Elks. There was a lot of fun. The highlight for me was losing a bet to Trevor, an army officer’s son. We bet a lollipop that I would catch more fish than he would. I gladly lost and had to pay up.” Trevor was busy with his reward and couldn’t be reached for comment, but his father, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Lynds said, “The event was a wonderful outing. It was nicely done and definitely appreciated. These MWRs as we call them-Moral and Welfare Recreation, help our soldiers and what we in the army call COMRELs-Community Relations. It was a success all around and especially for my son Trevor who caught the biggest fish and now has family bragging rights. We really want to thank Jim Winget.”
The group plans to give Winget an award for a job well done.
L to R Derrick Davis, Navy; Jim WInget, Elks, Hemet-Calif.; Veterans Chairman and Randall Rivera, veteran and reservist. (Courtesy of The Elks)
Randall Rivera, veteran and reservist with the 358 Civil Affairs Brigade echoed the groups feelings. “Everything worked out so well… everything went so smoothly. The crew on the boat was very supportive. Jim Winget, Veterans Chairman of the Elks could not have been more helpful. Every one of us in my unit was very grateful to have been a part of it. Anytime you get a chance to honor veterans, service members, that’s a good thing. This was a wonderful opportunity to show our soldiers how much we appreciate them. It gives the soldiers a chance to take themselves out of their every day work environment, relax and have some fun, and that’s very important to us veterans because it’s a career filled with so much pressure. It worked out perfectly because this Saturday was our scheduled “Family day“ for the year, and there couldn’t have been a better family day than this.”
For those who would like to support the Elks and their work, you can contact The Elks at their site www.elks.org, their national number (773) 755-4700 or their Veterans Crisis Line at 800 273-8255.
“Why curse the darkness when you can light a candle,” is something that Patti’s father always said. It inspired Patti Garibay as she founded the faith-based interdenominational alternative to the Girl Scouts in 1995. The inspiration for such an alternative came from growing up with four siblings and her disabled father who lived with multiple sclerosis for forty years before his death in 2004.
It was his attitude of “why curse the darkness when you can light a candle,” that inspired Patti to found her faith-based program and the publication of her book with this quote as the title.
Patti was an active leader and volunteer for Girl Scouts U.S.A. (GSUSA) for over 12 years. In West Chester, Ohio, she was highly influential in sharing the gospel with her troop.
It was in 1993 when a change occurred within the Girl Scouts that Patti disagreed with. She said that the Girl Scouts’ oath didn’t involve God as much and it bothered her.
“This to me sounded like a politically correct way at the time,” she said. She also believed that if you were to change God, what would that mean for morals? “I wanted to make a positive change and tried to do it through Girl Scouts. However, it did not work.”
With these changes, Patti decided to utilize public pressure by speaking up. She remembered all the doors being shut during this process and something needed to be done. Patti was determined to make the right change to better serve the needs of girls around the world if she could help it.
Starting from the Beginning in 1995
It was in 1995, that a group of parents (including Patti) founded a faith-based, scout-type, character development program for their daughters. American Heritage Girls was born that year and was dedicated to the mission of building women of integrity through service to God, family, community, and country.
American Heritage Girls is participating in badge programs, service projects, leadership opportunities, and outdoor experiences across the nation and the globe, all with an emphasis on Christian values and family involvement.
Patti wanted this organization to start for her third daughter, as her other two were already past the age for these kinds of groups (AHG is for ages 5-18). “I wanted to stand true in society,” she recalls thinking about that moment back in 1995.
Since that moment, Patti has been leading girls and women to help them live with integrity. She helps thousands of girls discover their true identity and purpose in Christ through AHG’s transformative programming.
What The Program Offers
American Heritage Girl is for girls between the ages 5-18 who meet together as a troop of 35-40 girls. These troops give girls the important experience of making and interacting with new friends and mentors. Members also learn leadership skills within a group setting. There are dedicated adult volunteers that lead the troops while also incorporating the valuable input of the girls.
AHG troops are located in communities across the nation. If one doesn’t already exist in the area, families have the option to bring the AHG program to their own area. An AHG troop development coach is available to answer questions and provide helpful resources to potential charter organizations and families in order to form a new troop.
What American Heritage Girls is Like Today
Today, there are over 52,000 members globally, with troops in all 50 states and 15 countries.
There are thousands of volunteer members across the country helping girls grow in their faith, cultivate a heart for service, enjoy the great outdoors, and have more fun than they can imagine. Girls can join a troop at any time and if there is not a troop available nearby, they can become a Trailblazer and enjoy the AHG program alongside their parent. There are a variety of Christian denominations that are also represented as Charter Organizations for troops.
How the Past Year Has Affected AHG
The past year tested the fortitude, courage, patience, and strength of everyone around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has created feelings of hopelessness and helplessness in men, women, and children.Social and physical distancing has also been detrimental to their mental state and their relationships.
How can fear become debilitating? “It manifests itself into a variety of unhealthy behaviors. One such behavior, worry, is a negative focus on the future,” said Patti. “Speculating what might occur under potential circumstances can provide each of us hundreds of sleepless nights.”
With American Heritage Girls, this program can help young girls get through some of the most difficult moments in their lives.
“What I wanted to do with AHG is to stand true to society and make a positive change in the community,” said Patti.
What is one of the most iconic American product designs of all time, that is simple in design, affordable, practical, indestructible, and pint-sized? Here are some clues: It’s a kitchen item celebrated by florists for its versatility, beloved by brides for its nod to Southern charm, and used by both beachgoers on the Alabama Riviera and foodies in Brooklyn bars. It would be easy to overlook Patent No. 22,186, but we should respect and remember the profound impact the Ball Mason jar has had on our culture.
The history of the Ball Mason jar is a fascinating story of five brothers who saw a need in their country for a safe way to preserve foods and, by using their abilities, changed the family meal and lives forever. A pint-sized history lesson reveals that John Landis Mason first patented the glass jar in 1857, but the Ball Brothers Manufacturing Glass Company licensed the Mason jar and in the process made the Ball Mason Jar one of the most iconic product designs of all time. For three centuries—through challenges and opportunities, economic prosperity and financial trials, disappointments and successes—the company has endured. And, furthermore, there has been only one trademark etched on the bottom of each jar, “Made in the U.S.A.”
Ironically, the Ball Mason jar, which was once viewed only as a primary kitchen product, is now more at home at weddings, bars, and chic events than on a pantry shelf. Pretty flower bouquets, perfumed candles, organic salads, and iced tea are placed inside the jars much more often than the expected canned fruits and vegetables.
An increased emphasis on environmental and economic issues related to healthy food production has created a resurgence of interest in canning, which promotes the original intent of the jars. Google “Popularity of home canning” to find numerous statistical facts supporting this claim. Only in recent years have I started canning, so I’m part of the data verifying the Ball Mason jar’s current “in vogue” status.
Canning may be making a huge comeback, but homemade jellies, jams, pickles, string beans, and tomatoes have always been part of the DNA of generations of women in my family who were like the industrious Little Red Hen of storybook fame: They grew their food, canned their food, and shared their food with others. Grandmother Jaye, who had nine children, probably canned out of necessity. My mom had four girls who loved nothing more than her hot biscuits filled with homemade preserves and jellies—fig, pear, plum, dewberry, scuppernong (a “big white grape”), strawberry, and peach. Many troubles—big and small—found their relief in a piping hot biscuit filled with these goodies.
(Linda Zhao)
After every last spoonful was scraped from the jar, it was washed and stored in a box to be reused the next season. In fact, often jars were passed from one family member to another. A Ball Mason jar is practically indestructible. Think about it: Do they ever chip or break?
The process of canning involved everyone in my family. Whether it was shaking a pear tree to bring down the ripened fruit or picking figs, my sisters and I were in charge of gathering the fruit. During the days of late spring, my sisters and I scoured fence rows or ditches beside roads for dewberry patches. We heeded Mother’s words concerning snakes that found the brambles of the bushes to be their cooling place, for Daddy’s leg bore the long scar of a rattlesnake’s fangs when he was a young boy. We had heard the story many times of how he lay near death’s door for weeks fighting off the poison from this lowly serpent.
As we picked the berries, I repeated the Uncle Remus stories my teacher had read aloud to my class. I tried to retell the tale with the same excitement and cunningness in my voice that Miss Farish used as she read Br’er Rabbit’s plea with Br’er Fox: “Please, don’t fling me in dat brier-patch.”
My sisters and I returned home victorious from our searches, but with fingers pricked by thorns and stained purple from eating more berries than we had placed in the syrup buckets and dishpans we carried. Mother placed the berries in a big pan and smothered them with Domino sugar. A dishtowel was placed on top of the pan for the berries to sit overnight on the table to macerate.
While cooking, Mother stirred and mashed the berries until the juice had thickened enough to coat a spoon. Then Daddy helped Mother strain the seeds and pulp through a large flour sack catching the berry juice in a pan before the Ball Mason jars were submerged for a water bath.
Years later, even my father had learned to can from start to finish. After Mother’s death, Daddy tried to fill her void by being a mother to us. He immersed himself in doing the things she had always done. Daddy, who had never opened a can, was suddenly canning pear and fig preserves.
There are few sights as pretty as sunlight streaming through Ball Mason jars filled with fruits and vegetables floating in their juices. The radiating, translucent shades and hues of colors can never be captured in the many paint samples hanging on a Home Depot wall.
The Ball Brothers story should be included in children’s history books, for their story is one of American greatness. Surprisingly, few students—or even adults—know about their dedication to a dream that became a reality. The spectrum of colors in the filled Ball Mason jars sitting on my kitchen island is as pleasing to the eye as the memories of great Americans, school days, and family times are to the heart. The rainbow of colors in the jars also reminds me of the Bible story of God’s faithfulness to Noah and to future generations of people. That’s something pretty remarkable for a pint-sized jar!
Gwenyth McCorquodale has been teaching since the age of 7, when she taught her three younger sisters the letters of the alphabet. Gwenyth retired from Judson College in Marion, Alabama, where she served as professor of education and head of the department of education. She has written books, articles for national and international journals, and for her hometown newspaper, The Monroe Journal.
At 31, Ben Ferguson took the perfect job for anyone seeking national influence. A conservative radio host, Ferguson joined CNN’s stable of political contributors in 2013. But seven years of expressing conservative views to a hostile audience, and even to hostile colleagues, became debilitating. “I got exhausted,” Ferguson said. “I just saw the hate and anger every time I’d go on TV that would come from people hoping that you die, and from liberal groups trying to attack you and silence you forever. They really try to ruin your life.”
So Ferguson chose to defuse the anger by building community. He left CNN last year and started a barbecue restaurant in his hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, while continuing his nationally syndicated radio show from Dallas. “I wanted an outlet that was just totally non-confrontational or controversial,” he said. “Food was my outlet to bring people to the table and bring them together.”
But Ferguson’s BBQ has a unique feature. It shares the building with a gun range the host also owns. “People love it,” he said. “It’s not what you expect when you’re walking into a gun range to have a world-class barbecue restaurant. People are going, ‘Are you kidding me? This is here?’ They keep coming back.”
(Courtesy of Ben Ferguson)
Savory Memories
Ferguson’s desire to open the restaurant reflects the memories of his younger days. “You know, when I lived there, I’ve never once cooked barbecue,” Ferguson said about Memphis. “The best barbecue places in the world are in Memphis, right? Why would you want to barbecue when you can literally just go down the street and eat some of the best barbecue in the world?
“But I missed the traditional Southern pork barbecue: pulled pork, shoulders, ribs and sausage. I got into barbecue because I missed it. I wanted that quality that I got in Memphis, when I could drive to an amazing restaurant and just get it.” His customers seem to agree. “Father’s Day was jam packed,” Ferguson said. “There was a wait list to get into the restaurant. We had our biggest Sunday ever on Father’s Day, which was exactly my goal: to bring families together.”
(Courtesy of Ben Ferguson)
Serving Safety
The gun range, meanwhile, allows residents to receive defensive firearms training in one of the nation’s most dangerous cities. “I wanted to teach as many people as possible how to protect themselves,” Ferguson said. “There are a lot of single mothers in Memphis, and we’ve done a lot of outreach in trying to bring in single mothers so they can protect and defend themselves and their kids in their home. That’s part of our mission statement, our purpose, and it’s worked.”
(Courtesy of Ben Ferguson)
The unique pairing attracts a wide variety of customers. Some conduct Bible studies. Others hold weddings, wedding rehearsals, or funerals. “Every Friday morning, we have a group of men that just hang out with one another, and they have a great time,” Ferguson said “It’s pretty amazing.”
Backseat Beginnings
Ferguson’s journey to radio host and barbeque entrepreneur began “in the backseat of my mom’s car, listening to this new guy on the radio by the name of Rush Limbaugh,” he said. “That was in 1993.” At the time, Ferguson was 11 years old. Later, he heard another host, a liberal member of Memphis’s City Council, talk about a bill being debated in Congress. “I asked my mom if I could call in because I thought what she [the female host] said was wrong and inaccurate,” Ferguson said. “I called and challenged her on it after I got the bill from Congress. She started yelling at me but I was able to beat her with facts. I fell in love with talk radio right then and there.”
Two years later, at 13, Ferguson became the nation’s youngest talk-show host. At 20, he became the youngest to sign a syndication contract. At 23, he wrote his first book, “It’s My America, Too,” and spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention. In 2012, Ferguson moved to Dallas, where he conducts his local and national shows.
A Way to the Heart
But the 39-year-old radio host might be making his biggest impact outside of the studio. “I’ve had liberals who say, ‘Ben, I don’t believe in what you said on the radio. But let me tell you, I went out to your restaurant,’ ” Ferguson said. ” ‘I couldn’t not try it after you’ve been talking about it for the past year, and I ended up taking a permit class. So I just want to say thank you because now, I can protect my family. I really enjoyed your staff and your facility.’ Bridging that gap has been amazing.”
For Ferguson, the way to a potential antagonist’s heart winds through the aroma of sauce and spices. “Anytime you smell barbecue or cook barbecue, it brings people together from different walks of life,” he said. “It doesn’t matter your politics.”
Joseph D’Hippolito is a freelance writer whose commentaries have appeared in the Jerusalem Post, The Stream, Front Page Magazine, and American Thinker.
