Sam's Knob Hike, December 2016

 

I took Calvin and Briggs up on the Parkway today for a short hike. I had heard of Sam's Knob for a while, but we had never been. Over the weekend a Facebook friend went with his family; I was inspired. We went at midday to Brevard for a fast-food lunch. We ate that on the final leg of the trip: up US 276 to the Parkway. The access to Sam's Knob is just a few miles south. We were on the trail at about 130pm. The trail cuts across a glen before heading up the small-ish mountain.

 

We missed a switchback and found ourselves scrambling almost vertically! We picked the trail back up and made it the rest of the way with no trouble. On the way back down I realized that some of the tree trunks and limbs were arranged in such a way (at the point we missed the turn) to try to indicate the right direction. We had missed the signs on the way up. The view from the top was great. The past few days had been cloudy, typical December weather for us. But this day had really blown clear, prompting me to blow off a meeting at the office and spirit us away. After descending we headed back toward Asheville via the Parkway, seeing some places that we had visited before. The tunnels were a big hit (again). We got home about 430pm.

Rockmont 2016

 

Eli has been working at Rockmont again this year. He was assigned to "CCC" which is the camping and climbing crew. They handle logistics for boys doing camping experiences on- and off-campus and all manner of climbing. Eli's interest in climbing has steadily evolved. I'm not sure what really sold him on the sport. But we have been to a climbing wall in Asheville before which he really enjoyed. He seems to have taken to this job this summer quite well. He had to miss a couple of weeks due to eye surgery, but he was back at camp the instant the doc released him and the camp could get him back into the schedule. This is his last week of the season, though occasional gigs will continue through the fall. I was looking for pictures of Briggs in the camp photos, and happened upon this one of Eli helping a random camper.

Lego Camp

 

Calvin attended Lego camp right after school finished at the beginning of summer. The theme was "Star Wars," so it was a perfect fit. He attended the half-day camp for a week. The group of a dozen or so was all boys except for one very brave girl. Calvin had a blast getting his nerd on all week. They didn't get to bring much home, but Calvin did enjoy working with the robotic Lego components.

Glaucoma

In November 2014 we took Eli to our local optometrist for eyeglasses. He was complaining that some things in school were blurry. No problem we figured. The doc did a full eye exam and prescribed basic lenses. He also said the eye pressure (IOP) was high. We set a follow-up appoint for a couple of weeks later, to see what the pressure did over time, and at an earlier hour (pressures can be higher in the morning). The pressure was elevated still, so he gave us some eye drops. I have glaucoma so all of this seemed "normal" and somewhat of a script. The drops worked for a while, but the pressure went back up. We tried different drops with the same pattern: down and then back up. All through this I was talking with my ophthalmologist whenever I had an appointment. Finally in November 2015, the optometrist had run out of ideas; I took Eli to see my doc. He concurred with everything we had been doing: the right things. But he was convinced that Eli's glaucoma was the pediatric variety, which he said would not respond sustainably to eye drops. He urged us to see a specialist.

By this point Eli was getting ready for AmeriCorps in a matter of weeks. With so much up in the air (my doctor had said he was pretty sure some manner of surgery was going to be required) we let AmeriCorps know what was up, and they deferred Eli for 6 months. In a sense that was a let down, but in another way it was "one less thing" to deal with.

We had a couple of visits in Durham with a new doc who tweaked the drops with no effect. She suggested "selective laser treatment" of the eyes, a way to increase outflow of fluid from the eye that was minimally invasive. Eli had that in March. We had to dawdle three months to see if the treatment worked. It didn't. The Duke doctor suggested a different person at the same center, a specialist in pediatric glaucoma (Eli had missed working with her initially by being 2 years older than her age limit). But we wound up seeing her in late May. She recommended a trabulectomy on the right eye (its pressure was somewhat high than the left the day of our visit). Too, we could try one eye and see if the procedure worked without putting the left eye through surgical trauma needlessly if it didn't.

Eli had the trab this past week. He went on Wednesday and had the surgery that afternoon. The surgery went well. Eli has been working at Rockmont this summer, living there full-time, so I was pretty sure his adherence to his medication protocols was spotty at best. Before the surgery, without drops for a couple of days his IOP was 37/31. (Good numbers for a glaucoma patient are between 10 and 20.) A follow-up the next morning revealed promising numbers. He came on home Thursday afternoon. We saw our local optometrist on Friday, and the numbers were good still 11/16. We'll see my doctor in a couple of weeks, and then back to Durham in early August.

Glaucoma has taken up a big chunk of our time this year: the ups and downs of the effectiveness of eye drops, and the trips to Durham. Eli has remained pretty even-keeled, but he admitted to a co-worker at camp on Monday that he was a little anxious. He's never had surgery before. We'll see how things go over the next few weeks.

Reading

It may be that Calvin, of the three boys, is the one who most enjoys reading in and of itself. Today getting off the bus, traffic came to a halt in front of the church as usual. Calvin got off with book in hand, and nose buried deep in the pages. Usually he charges on across the street and up the front steps, but today was different. A utility truck was stopped forward of the bus. Calvin made his way across the street much slower than usual, wrapped up as he was in his reading. He finally made it to the sidewalk, and taking two more steps bumped into the handrail for the front steps of the church. He bounced backward a little, finally looked up, and adjusted his trajectory up the steps to where I was sitting waiting on him. I took my eyes off him to wave to the bus driver, who was chuckling. I spotted the truck driver as he began to drive past: he too was grinning. Calvin was oblivious to the humor he had inadvertently provided us all. He remained engrossed in the book, barely acknowledging me and headed straight to my office to finish the book. This picture captures those remarkable final moments.

Helos

View of the staging area, fuel trucks and helicopters

The plan today was for me to take Briggs and Calvin up to Tweetsie Railroad in Blowing Rock for the day. The only dicey part was that Briggs spent the previous night with a friend and wasn't ready to go early like he often is, and too he had a football practice in the evening we had to be back for. On the way up we passed a sign cautioning about traffic related to the Forest Service trying to put out a brush fire, north of Marion. I slowed and stole a glance as a rudimentary staging area, including 3 helicopters. There was a tent, several Forest Service vehicles and several folks. One of those folks was a member of our church! He's a "smoke jumper." I mentioned all this to the boys and made note to tell Eli when we got home.

Well, our travel tanked at Linville: traffic everywhere. There was a jam in Linville. There was another at Banner Elk. And finally a miles-long back-up going into Blowing Rock. We endured it as long as we could. But finally the boys asked if we could just turn around and go home. I didn't need much convincing! We drove back to Banner Elk and had fastfood for lunch. Briggs remarked that it was a case of 4 hours of driving for a fastfood lunch! We set off for home.

Waiting in the parking area for the helicopter to take off

As we made our way back toward Marion, I wondered if there might still be people at the brush fire heliport, and how much trouble I would encounter for stopping to see if our church-friend was still around. I tried to be discreet as I pulled into the parking area, but we were greeted by a very friendly Forest Service employee. We exchanged introductions, and I explained what I was interested in (seeing the church guy if he was still around). The short answer was that he had left. But we got shuffled up to various others in the staging area, including ultimately the captain, or boss, or chief of the heliport. I was struck by the several layers and branches of command: personnel for fighting fires, personnel for the helicopters and personnel to run the impromptu heliport. There was Kenny who first met us; then a heliport supervisor-trainee whose name I forgot; and finally Denise, from Rome, GA who was boss of the whole place. We met several other fire-fighters and pilots, and the radio-operator. Denise guided us through what was going on.

Crews' hangout: middle of a field

We were told that indeed Steve was no longer there, but that we were welcome to hang out and see what was what. We got word that a flight would be leaving soon (30 minutes) and once it had left we could get a close-up look at the remaining helicopters. The boys were game to stay. We got invited into the tented shelter area the crews use. We watched the pre-flight briefing and its take-off and then got escorted on a tour of a Bell 407 helicopter by its pilot, and guy named Brad from Colorado who (with his wife) worked for a helicopter leasing agency in Atlanta.He has been flying for 10 years, servicing oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, running EMS in Colorado, and finally supporting fire-fighters for the US Forest Service.

You can't tell it but the rotor on the second helicopter is turning

We had a blast, though most of the time I regretted that Eli was not along. Realizing that we're only 45 minutes from the place, I covenanted with myself to bring Eli back soon.

At home later, Eli filled us in on specifics of the helicopter was saw, and was able to track down a news report on the fire in McDowell County they were trying to contain. The plan is to go back Friday morning and see if Eli can score some quality time at the same place.

 

 

Personal tour!

Personal tour!

Take-off!

Pastoring days

I just finished reading Stanley Hauerwas' memoir, Hannah's Child. I somehow missed reading him while I was in seminary and pastoring. It got me thinking about those days, especially my brief tenure as associate pastor at Trinity UMC, Durham. The previous associate had had a rocky relationship with the pastor. I don't know really why I was sent, certainly not to try and repair anything; maybe just to be a somewhat stabilizing presence. Trinity was coasting on its history of being a high-profile congregation, though its glory days were mostly behind it. There were plenty of heavy-hitting folks still around, including a former governor and several faculty and staff from Duke Divinity ( where I did not attend). As I was reading this book, and enjoying how Hauerwas reflected on his arrival at Duke, I wondered if maybe that was why I was appointed to this particular church: simply because I was _not_ a graduate of the local school (I had attended Wesley Seminary in Washington, DC). I certainly wasn't going to "do" anything that grew out of being an alum of another school: I was far too timid and unsure of myself at that point. But I wonder if my superiors had this in the back of their minds. It's on my mind now. As it turns out, the pastor left the following year. I felt like I wanted to give the church a clean slate, so I opted to move along also (to Goldsboro). A couple of things spring to mind about those days: a major screw-up: I accepted a preaching gig at a neighboring church for a mid-week service and then completely forgot about it; I wrote a pretty scathing letter to the local paper in response to an article and learned that I don't like negative blow-back; I met the woman who would become my wife. A fascinating year.