EXPLORING THE MOUNTAIN WEST WITH JEREMIAH GUNDELBERG: Prelude, part 2

Gundelberg Country

To continue.  Keller/Gundelberg was perhaps not the first faculty member hired for Fairhaven College, but he certainly was the most distinguished.  His field is American history, broadly defined.  Despite a brutal load of teaching responsibility -  at Fairhaven faculty are expected to involve themselves closely in student lives; listen to their complaints, commiserate with their failed love-lives, play marbles with them in the afternoon -  Bob published several books and numerous scholarly articles, in the process missing the WWU all-campus research award by the flattest of flattened hairs.  He handily won the all-campus teaching award.  Moreover, he was odds-on favorite for an honor that never quite came into being - faculty member most likely to be assassinated by an  administrator – owing to the fact that he conceived it to be part of his duty to inform Deans, Provosts, Presidents and all their hangers-on when they were screwing up.  We all (college faculty) see these things all the time, but for the most part we simply roll our eyes and look away.  Not Bob.  If it were imperfect, it needed fixing.  Thanks, Bob: while you were fighting all those battles for me, I was busy writing summer research proposals to keep myself in beer and beans.

And despite all this activity, Keller/Gundelberg found time to persecute me in the Faculty-Staff newsletter – and drag me all over several ranges of mountains.

So now I find that I have run out of excuses to stall, and I have to attempt to describe the relationship between K/G and mountains.

 Most of us like mountains.  Some of us like them more than others.  Next to my family, mountains have been the most important thing in my life since I was perhaps 14.  I rarely have felt so completely alive as when I have sweated and grunted my way to the top of some exposed knob, plunked myself down with an open beer, and begun to enjoy the view.  I consider myself as lodged near the top of the spectrum of mountain lovers, and one of the most painful tribulations of aging for me has been having to give up my mountains.

Bob Keller cannot be placed anywhere on that spectrum of normal mountain lovers.  That he loves mountains is not in doubt, but the feeling is vastly more complicated.  Much of his pleasure in the mountains consists of testing himself against them – and surviving the attempt.

Thus, if our way upward was impeded by a particularly ugly segment of cliff, I would skulk around one side or the other; Bob would go straight up.  If a particularly nasty norther was blowing out of Canada on a February week-end, before I could settle in with a good book Bob would have persuaded me to climb Winchester Mountain in blowing snow, using my new snowshoes.  Or test my newly acquired canoe against the Nooksack River on a day so cold that ice formed on the paddles and my feet turned numb (I actually lost a shoe in a mud bank and didn’t notice for several hours).  

And so it went.  The problem was that I have always been a clandestine wuss – and Bob knew it.  I was a Sierra Nevada/Colorado Rockies trail hiker; he was a Cascade/Olympics mountaineer.  I couldn’t hike as fast as he, but I could hike just as far.  I could carry as heavy a load.  While he set up the tent with spectacular efficiency, I could catch trout for dinner.  I was better on steep snow than Bob – but I would turn back first.  And, as I said, so it went.  In the mountains Bob was leader – and that resulted in some amusing adventures, a few of which I will relate when I find the energy.

EXPLORING THE MOUNTAIN WEST WITH JEREMIAH GUNDELBERG: Prelude, part 1

This isn't Gundelberg, either

You cannot hope to properly appreciate the little mountain essays to follow unless you first come to terms with the character of its chief protagonist, Gundelberg/Keller.  (That is too cumbersome; hereafter G/K will be referred to as “Bob”.)  Consequently, in this “Preface” I will undertake the spectacularly daunting task of introducing you to “Bob”.  Not the complete Bob, of course; I doubt if even he could accomplish that.  I will attempt to sketch the mountain Bob, and even that will not be easy.  I want you to be able to say “I’ll bet he did _________”, rather than “he did WHAT?”, at least once in a while.

The bare facts are easily related.  Bob grew up in the Tacoma area, in the shadow of Mt Rainier.  He attended the University of Puget Sound, which also is glowered over by our State Volcano.  It may be that 22 years of constant scrutiny from a stern pile of volcanic rocks played a role in shaping his later attitude toward mountains (and life); that can never established.  All I know is that Mt. Rainier pervaded his life; he talked about it constantly, climbed it several times, hiked its circumference at least once and, one suspects, never completely emerged from its shadow.

At any rate, Bob left UPS and enrolled at the University of Chicago as a degree candidate in theology, and left some years later with a Ph.D. in history.  He taught for several years at Olympic College, Bremerton; history, for sure, but also mountaineering and who knows what else?  He started a mountaineering library there, and probably climbed all the nearby peaks.  He was content at Olympic College but was forced to leave after a few years owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding regarding a nuclear submarine.  However Bremerton’s loss was Bellingham’s gain, because Bob became a Founding Father of Fairhaven College.

I will not attempt to explain Fairhaven College, other than to say that it is a freeform, do-your-own-thing, ungraded sort of place that for a student could be the perfect educational environment or absolute disaster, depending on one’s level of ambition and maturity.  Bob fit right in.  He taught courses in history, yes, but also law, politics and religion.  He was famous for an offering titled, simply, “Death”.  He taught “Mountaineering”, which was as much about outdoor ethics as actual climbing.  (I helped with that one).  He once taught a seminar on “Chicago”, and took his students there.  He spent a quarter disproving the existence of Bigfoot.  And so forth.

When asked “What do you teach, Dr. Keller?” he would often answer “Truth”

(To be continued)

EXPLORING THE MOUNTAIN WEST WITH JEREMIAH GUNDELBERG, Introduction

Not Gundelberg

So, what’s going on here?

 I have decided to write some Frivolity posts about my mountain adventures, in the hope of amusing some of you and the certainty of killing some time.  I am in Borrego Springs and have been for over a month.  Over half that period I have been experiencing a primo case of what is known here as the desert crud.  It consists of a virus that appears to be almost too nasty for the human immune system, and induces coughing fits so loud they set off minor landslides in the surrounding mountains.  After such a fit I have been too tired to get out of my chair, much less go outside.

And the rest of the time, it has rained and the desert washes have been impassable.  My sturdy little jeep has yet to experience 4-wheel drive!  It is raining right now.

All this being the case I have decided to write the definitive history of my mountain adventures with that legendary Cascadian, Jeremiah Gundelberg.

No, of course, that’s not his real name.  His real name is Bob Keller.  Bob invented Gundelberg in the aftermath of an early adventures, one which I will describe soon.  Subsequently, Bob and I used Gundelberg to harass one another over many years.  It was fun.  It sharpened our creativity.  It kept our minds off work.  Somewhere I have a thick file filled with Gundelberg memorabilia.   As someone once remarked, if we had put the effort expended on Gundelberg to useful ends we would have invented the wheel.  Or at least the Internet.

So, in my next post I will do my best to introduce you to Keller/Gundelberg, a formidable task.  Most of our adventures occurred long before digital photography; consequently, I don’t have a ready supply of illustrations to catch your eye and tempt you to read.  I would appreciate pictures of mountains, Bob, and Bob in the mountains – transmitted as attachments to an email to myrlbeck@msn.com.  Thanks.

SUPPERBOWL LI

In Catholicism there are said to be different degrees of sin: venial, and mortal.  Presumably it is harder to be forgiven the second kind than the first.  Almost unknown is that there is another class of sin: being a NY Yankees fan.  If you live in the Bronx, are a former player or part of his family, or once dated Derek Jeter you can root for the Yankees and feel safe.  Anyone else, look out!  God is watching.

Well, now it appears that another kind of serious sin has evolved: NOT rooting for the New England Patriots.  God obviously is on their side.  Not only did He give them Tom Brady, He kept the ball out of the hands of Marshawn Lynch a few Super Bowls ago.  Yesterday I turned off the TV when the Falcons clearly had it won: 21 zip in the second quarter and pulling away.  Fortunately I turned it back an hour or so later.

Tom Brady is the best quarterback ever (he is GOAT).  And, according to some female friends, he’s cute.

MY NEW SWEATSHIRT

                             Polish base, Antarctica

Until this moment you probably have not known that there are at least 17 institutions worldwide named Trinity College.  Well, now you do.  This is completely useless information that you should forget immediately - but see below

“So what?” you ask.  Don’t worry, I will explain.  Night before last the heat went off in my antique little townhouse.  Even in the low desert of Southern California it is not pleasant to be without heat in late January.  Rather than pile on the blankets, I pulled on a gaudy sweatshirt, all blue and gold, with eagles.  It says Trinity College, front and back.  Apparently someone visiting with a realtor left it (my place is for sale).  As nobody has claimed it, I had tossed it in a box of stuff headed for Good Will, right next to my bed.

So, anyway, this sweatshirt (a hoody, no less) got me through the night.  In fact, it proved to be so warm that I have worn it ever since, and will continue to do so until it warms up – later next week, they say.  This morning I wore it to the lab, where a lesson on applying plaster to fossils was taking place.  People kept asking me about my sweatshirt, often with grins on their faces – it IS rather inappropriate for an octogenarian.  Finally I resorted to telling them that it was left over from the 1950s, when Trinity College, Cambridge, recruited me for their rugby team.  Some people laughed, and nobody seemed to believe me.  At 5 ft 6 in and 190 lbs, I guess I don't look like a retired rugby hooligan. 

Of course, the real reason for this blog is to remind you that I have a charming little desert getaway for sale, for next to nothing.  AND that it comes with one really neat sweatshirt.

NICE PEOPLE

My descendants

Yes, there are good people in this world.  The condo next to mine here in Borrego Springs, CA, is owned by an elderly couple who themselves could hardly be nicer.  (Elderly?  When an 83-year-old uses that word, it means something.) Currently their son, who I will call Jack, because that’s his name, is living with them.  Jack recently lost his wife to a lingering rare disease that is crueler even than  ovarian cancer, if that is possible.   He is recently retired and probably in his mid-sixties.  He plays a lot of golf.  Anyway…

I happened to mention to Jack that my garbage disposal unit was on the fritz and that I was researching the possibility of there being a qualified repair man in town.  (Believe me, in Borrego Springs this is not a given.)  He insisted on looking at it, and immediately deduced that the problem resided in the electrical system.  Over the next three days, including a trip to the nearest hardware store (7 miles; my place is really in the sticks), he worked vigorously for maybe three hours – and, by God, fixed the thing!

I am the son of a practical, highly skilled country boy turned hardware/lumber merchant.  Dad tried hard to teach me practical, useful things, but he failed.  I could no more have fixed that electrical problem than I could have excised a brain tumor.  But Jack did it, smiling and chatting all the while.  I offered to pay him back by giving him a lecture on plate tectonics, but he politely declined.

Thanks, Jack.  We need more like you. 

Another taped treasure from my basement

You are never lost in Iceland

Miss Congeniality

After swatting flies all day (see previous blog), last night I relaxed with this pleasant, undemanding little movie.  After watching the Seahawks get creamed in Green Bay for a while this afternoon, I decided it would be more fun to write a blog.  So here it is.

Do you know that Sandra Bullock is 52?  I haven’t seen her for a few years, but she always strikes me as being about 30, beautiful and brainy.  Other important cast members include Michael Caine (of whom one can safely say that no movie with him in it is ever truly bad), Candice Bergen (who had a brief heyday about then, now thankfully terminated), someone named Benjamin Bratt  (whom I liked but know nothing about ) and – sadly – Captain Kirk.  Where were you Scotty?  You might have beamed him out of there.  I hate to see a man who can stand down the Klingons make a fool of himself.

Okay, the movie is only 16 years old and was fairly popular (the critics didn’t like it, but who listens to them?).  That means you’ve probably already seen it.  So see it again; it is good for psychic tension.  The plot is not particularly deep or taxing to follow: sad-sack imperfectly civilized female FBI agent is transformed into a beauty queen to stop a threat to the Miss Something beauty pageant.  Plenty of chuckles, lots of pretty girls – what’s not to like?

BUT be sure to avoid Miss Congeniality II, which (I saw the first 30 minutes) was terrible.  Even Michael Caine couldn’t have saved it.