A Reflection on My Father, Ken Muir (1943 - 2024)

If you are a regular reader of the blog, you know that in February and March I shared pages here from "The White Book," my father's personal journal of his last days, during his battle with stage IV metastatic cancer.

I am sorry to report that my father has passed away. Ken Muir (1943-2024) was a bit over 80 years old when he died yesterday.

I am so glad that many of you knew my father, and many more of you got to know him through his remarkable journal.

However, this is not an obituary, but rather, a retelling of a part of his story.

Many long-time friends from my hometown, Glen Ridge may remember Ken as an American History teacher at Verona High School, then, Mountain Lakes High School in New Jersey, and then as the vice principal at the latter school throughout the 1980’s. 

In the 1990's, he taught at Garinger here in Charlotte, North Carolina. There, he was a Time-Warner Star Teacher.

 

One funny note on my dad as vice-principal: Ken was a cool vice principal. 

For years, he donned leather pants and a leather jacket while commuting to work on his motorcycle, a Suzuki 750 cc, which he only half-jokingly referred to as "a demon."

 

Believe me, you didn’t want to report to that guy’s office for disciplinary action if you misbehaved...

One day, in the 2000’s, my Dad gifted me those legendary leather pants, and I still have them. I even wore them at Halloween last year at Monsterama Con. 

The torch has been passed. But I'll never be as cool as my dad was.

Again, this isn't an obituary.  

My Dad's story is worth re-telling, because, frankly, he is something of a miracle. I will try, to the best of my ability, to explain. You see, the shadow of cancer hung over his life for nearly twenty years, and it never stopped him from living a great life, or from being there for his family. It never stopped him from being a great dad, or a great husband, or an amazing grandfather.

Ken Muir’s nearly two-decade long war with cancer began most unexpectedly, in December of 2005. 

One evening, after dinner, he felt intense abdominal pain, and my mom took him to the emergency room to be checked out. I still remember receiving the telephone call. I was living in Monroe with my pregnant wife, Kathryn. We had ordered take-out and were playing Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds on the Nintendo Game Cube when we picked up the phone.

I had never heard my mother sound so frightened before. The news was bad. The doctors had found a large, black spot on my Dad’s pancreas. After a few anxiety-provoking and hectic weeks of biopsies and tests, which my dad endured with his characteristic good temperament, the grave news was confirmed. He had pancreatic cancer. His prognosis was six months to live. At best. Again, this was 2005.

 

It seemed, in those dark days, my father would not even live to see my son, Joel, born. We were all utterly devastated. 

Wrecked.

 

I remember so well those frantic, desperate days around the holidays of 2005. We all researched, non-stop, experimental treatments – anything – that might prolong my dad’s life.  It seemed for a while that we were destined to lose him before he reached his next birthday. He was in his early sixties.

But the pancreatic cancer diagnosis was not an obituary, either.

 

We soon found that there was risky option for treatment. It was a radical and dangerous surgery called a Whipple that could cut the cancerous portions of the pancreas out. But the procedure required a complete re-wiring of my Dad's digestive system. Some doctors advised him not to have the surgery, because the chances of surviving it were not good. 

There were few surgeons available, even, who had the training and knowledge to perform a Whipple. 

One ghoulish doctor contacted my Dad out of the blue by phone, and really wanted to do it, so he could "learn" on my father how to do the surgery.

So, surgery or no surgery?

My leather-wearing, motorcycle-riding Dad made the call. 

He said it was better to try, than to do nothing. He chose the fight. He must have been afraid, but he didn't show fear.  In my family, we all clung closer to each other than ever.

At surgery, almost instantly, his surgeon started to lower expectations for a positive outcome. It was possible he would open my dad up, see there was nothing to do, close him back up, and send us all home.

A roll of the dice...

 

I’ll never forget sitting in the waiting room at Johns Hopkins’ in Baltimore with Kathryn and my mom, for what seemed like an eternity as my father underwent that grueling, eight-hour-long Whipple procedure.  I sat there proofreading Horror Films of the 1980’s, my gut clenched non-stop in anxiety. Kathryn had it worse than me, truth-be-told. She was expecting, and let's just say that the waiting room chair wasn't doing wonders for her back.

 

Finally, the surgeon called us in at the end of the operation. He had a story to share with us, not an obituary.

He told us the surgery was successful. I’ll never forget his exact phraseology. The surgeon said that the tumor on my dad's pancreas had “slid out like butter” under the scalpel's blade. 

Words you want to hear!

And though my Dad’s stomach did not re-start for a few days (which was terrifying…), he soon came home, to North Carolina, and began the long process of recovering from the Whipple. My mom was at his side the whole time, helping him every day back to health. This is my mom in a nutshell. My dad is strong, and but she is an absolute titan.

 

Soon enough, Ken Muir was healthy again, and he was there at the hospital -- smiling and happy -- to meet my boy, Joel, just twenty or so minutes after my son was born, in October of 2006.  

 

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, those two. Ken became known, forever after to Joel, as “Pa.”   

Where once we had fear and sadness, suddenly, our family life was full of hope and wonder again.

 

When Joel was a baby, he had difficulty with reflux and couldn’t sleep, and Pa – my Dad – was the only one who could regularly get him to fall sleep. He would pat Joel's back, walk him around, and sing "She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain..."-- for hours.

 

Joel’s favorite thing as a baby was, actually, to be carried around in my father's strong arms, through his garage workshop. There, Joel could see all of my Dad’s tools in action. Drills, saws, canisters of nails, hammers, you name it. Joel and Pa bonded instantly over their love of tools (and oddly, clocks). Joel’s first word, while being carried about in my dad’s arms, was “tick tock," as my Dad showed him the mechanical workings of a cuckoo clock hanging in my parents' kitchen.

 

So, from 2006 to 2016, Ken was healthy, vigorous, strong and able to devote his retirement to the people, the relationships, and the things that he loved most. He suddenly had a new lease on life. To read. To work in his backyard, in the Great Outdoors.  And, of course, to bowl with my mom. He loved to bowl.

 

Then in 2016 came the SECOND dark cloud.  This one hurt more than the first.

A routine exam showed that my dad’s PSA was unusually high. Further tests revealed that he had prostate cancer, and not just any prostate cancer, either: aggressive prostate cancer. He had a Gleason Score of 9, which is about as bad as it gets. 

Very quickly, my Dad had surgery, but the bad news didn’t stop coming. 

 

The surgery had come too late. 

 

Cancer was detected in his lymph nodes, and my father’s diagnosis was officially Stage 4 Metastatic Prostate Cancer.

But you know my refrain. This isn't an obituary. 

And, I've got to tell you, the diagnosis of a second life-threatening cancer was not treated as such by my father. 

For the last eight years, since March 2016, my father fought this particular demon with strength, good humor, and resilience. His doctors have been nothing short of amazing. They have never stopped looking for ways to trick the cancer. My mom was at his side every minute. And I mean every, single minute, right until yesterday morning.

 

Now let me tell you something about the villain of this tale. About this cancer…it adapts like the Borg do. 

A treatment would work for a while, and then fail, and the cancer would grow again. My dad often likened fighting it to “whack-a-mole.”  

 

My dad underwent radiation treatment, chemotherapy, infusion, more radiation, and on and on. 

And he lived well, surrounded by love, and the things he loved doing. He made it to eighty+.

 

The war has finally ended and, of course, it could only end one way. In the way all battles with cancer end.

 

But I am so grateful to report that in the last 8 years, my dad gave that fucking cancer a run for its money.

 

Ken survived the COVID pandemic with us, even with that cancer.

 

We went on family trips together in 2017 - to Washington D.C., in 2018 to Universal to Orlando, and in 2019 to Colonial Williamsburg.  We had summer trips to the beach every June for eight years as a family.

 

Ultimately, Ken saw all three of his granddaughters graduate from high school and he lived to see Joel get just about through his junior year in high school (while also working on his Associates in Art degree), and get inducted into the National Honor Society.

 

Cancer didn’t win, I insist, because I didn’t lose my dad when I was 37 years old, when Joel wasn’t even here yet to meet my father.  

My dad foiled cancer’s evil plan for him, and lived to know Joel, and to spend eight more years with his wife,  his children and grandchildren.

 

And my dad told me not long ago, when all lines of treatment had been exhausted, that the ending of story didn't need to be an obituary.  

He took me aside one day in March and told me that he was okay. He told me not to worry. Or to feel sad. Or to lose sleep.  

He said, “John, this is how it is supposed to be. It’s the cycle of life.”

 

Even with cancer as a constant in his life all this time, my Dad lived happily and fully to his 80^th year, my 54^th year on this earth. 

I think about what my Dad would want me to write today, in his absence, specifically.  Because the totality of Ken Muir is so much more than the cancer that he tricked for so long, but which in the end, still took him too soon.

 

Ken Muir was a humble, sweet, gentle, erudite person, and I think he wouldn’t want me to go on about him too much. (But I have, of course...I'm a writer.)

 

So I will say this of my beloved father: he was a man who loved learning, and devoted much of his life to educating the next generation (which is a lesson, I hope, I learned from him). 

Ken Muir was a man of great curiosity and intellect. 

He was a man who studied history, and was fascinated in particular by World War II. He was born during that conflict and it defined so much of his studies and interests.

He loved to garden and take care of the grounds on his property.  

He loved a good game. Family game nights with him were so much fun.

He loved his Barracuda!  Classic American "muscle" he called it.

Most of all, Ken loved being with his beloved wife of 56+ years.  They were a team for the ages.

 

I knew this day was coming.  I have dreaded this dawn for so long, and now it has finally arrived. 

Cicero said that “the life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living,” and so I ask you all to join me in remembering Ken Muir, today, through his story, through his fight, and through his victories. Not his obituary.

Thank you for reading about my dad, and his journey these last few months.

My Father's Journal, Epilogue: "My Cancer"

My friends, we have reached the final entry in my father’s journal of his battle with cancer.  

 

I want to thank all the readers who have commented and read his thoughts these last few weeks. 

 

I have shown my dad all your responses, and words, and they have meant the world to him. 

 

To know that his thoughts have meaning, and are valued by others, has been a real lift for him during this terrible fight.  

 

We both, humbly, thank you all. He wishes you all well!

 

 

My Cancer

 

By Ken Muir

 

I have long watched this train wend its way across the prairie. At times only the engine’s curling smoke is visible, as the train dives out of view into a valley or ravine. At other times the entire conveyance is visible above ground, working its way toward me as I stand on the platform of this small, lonely station.

 

Moments ago the locomotive rounded a final bend, its great yellow headlamp glaring. It surges into the station, dwarfing me with its bulk and noise. The engineer leans forward, pulls a lever, and vents steam all around with a hideous shriek.

 

Flinty-eyed, he looks down at me….”Your ride is here…”

My Father's Journal: "Laurel Love"

Laurel Love

 

By Ken Muir

 

For more than fifteen years I avidly chased pieces in the Roseville “Laurel” line.  Some explanation is needed.

 

Laurel pots, the group of eleven pots which once sat on shelves in our house, originated in 1934 during the depths of the Great Depression.  Since money was scarce for most Americans, the line is a small one, comprising only thirteen pieces that first year.  It occurred to me at some point that I might eventually seek out the entire line.  But some pieces remained very hard to find and I eventually gave up that quest. At the end our collection came to represent about $6,000 in retail value during the height of the market years, around 2005.  Fortunately we did not have to invest that much.

 

This aesthetic passion of mine was kicked off by finding a six-inch vase at the Metrolina Antique Show being sold for $100 by an elderly dealer from South Carolina. This was in about 1998, and the quest for additional pieces soon began.

 

What drew me to this particular pattern?  Well, it just “checked all my boxes.” Ever since the 1980s, green pottery had held a special appeal for me, and Laurel’s earthy green tones called out.  Its other earth tones, brown and berry red, also appealed.  The pieces went well with the brown vintage furniture that we loved, and especially with oak, my personal favorite.  Also, its low-sheen glaze was eye-catching.

 

Historically, Laurel fits into an interesting niche in American aesthetics. Its leafy green over-all appearance, highlighted by brown twigs and red berries, recalled strongly the Arts and Crafts Movement earlier in the century. But its molded-in straight lines and “shouldered” handles were a strong connection to the Art Deco Movement, all the rage in America at the time of its manufacture. Thus, the line connected two of my favorite eras in American art history.

 

While we were lucky enough to find most pieces on eBay, a few had to be chased down across the Eastern Seaboard. My first large piece, the ten-inch vase at lower left of group, required a drive through the bowels of the York-Reading area of Pennsylvania to an antique store on Route 9 in the Jersey Shore region. The six-inch rounded vase, (right side, three shelves up) was found at the Hillsville, VA antique market. None were found at private estate sales, as Laurel has always been a relatively rare pattern. It is ranked in the upper mid-range of Roseville patterns by price, and comes in three color waves: green, yellow, and black, and dusty pink.  The green is by far the prettiest and the most sought after.

 

My “Laurel whopper story” is recalling an eBay auction, in 2005, of the largest piece in the line, the 14” vase that we have on the bottom row, center.  In frenzied bidding it went for $2700 that day. Ours, a Christmas present to myself a couple years after the “great recession,” cost less than half that amount.  It is identical to that one,  a perfect piece.

 

So, that’s my story of the “love of Laurel.” 

 

In the panoply of life’s sins, this lust of mine is not among the great evils.

My Father's Journal: "Apologia"

Apologia

By Ken Muir

 

I am a person of my age, of my time in history. 

 

Born into an America that was on the verge of winning the greatest war in history, I and my generation were to be the beneficiaries of that great victory.

 

The material fruits of that triumph were not evident to all Americans immediately, even though they were there from the outset.  After all, we had not been pounded into rubble, burnt to a cinder, like so many of our erstwhile enemies.  

 

But over a few decades those material advantages became increasingly apparent. Commodious housing, excellent transportation, abundant food,  ample heat for homes and workplaces and, increasingly, air-conditioned spaces-—these and many other advantages supporting a pleasant lifestyle came to be viewed as an American birthright.

 

Timber, steel, cement, coal, oil, aluminum, food grains, natural resources and durable goods of great value underlay this huge flowering of American middle-class life.

 

And the common element which drove them all forward, made their fabrication and exploitation possible, was the use of fossil fuels.

 

Today we realize that this profligate use of fossil fuels, going back to the 18th century with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in England and France, has placed us on the precipice of a world-shattering climate crisis. 

 

The evidence of this sweeping change has already made itself apparent, and volumes of insight much greater than mine flow at us very day.

 

Environmentalism is as close to a religion for me as anything is. My issuing a warning here can only be termed trite. But I can look back over my adult life and assess it, critique it, and, hopefully, see in it some positive steps to use as models.

 

Where did Ken Muir the “water miser” come from? 

 

He originated with studies published by the U S Department of the Interior in the late 1960s and available (cheaply) from the U S Superintendent of Documents.  Along with ballooning world population growth, the shrinking supplies of fresh water globally portended a troubled future.

 

We took our first small steps at water conservation while living in Glen Ridge. Using flow-restricter shower heads, re-using sink water to nourish our few plants and shrubs during times of sparse rainfall, avoiding the use of lawn sprinklers and industrial car washes—- these were our first small steps.

 

It was at the house in Charlotte NC that I really began to focus on water issues and energy use. While the house itself was a major “transgression,” given its size, none of that ever occurred to us in 1987 when we first committed to a spacious home.

 

However, once we were settled there and began to watch climate trends unfold, our attention became focused on minimizing our carbon footprint.  We saved trees wherever possible and extended the life of perhaps 150 trees by twenty-five years.  We culled the sick and dying but preserved almost all the healthy trees. On the two main lots most of those trees still survive now, thirty-six years after we became owners.

 

Our rain barrel operation was a major contribution.  We had at least a hundred and fifty shrubs on the property, and all were watered and sustained by roof run-off for our last eight years. Adding in our supplemental (twenty 7 gal. spackle buckets) storage we most always had 300 gallons of reserve for dry spells. This water was hand-carried to the plants all around the property throughout the warm weather seasons. After 2005, the year we put in the grassed “lower forty” area, we almost never used sprinklers down there. Our original 1997 irrigation system used trickle-feed distribution in large part.

 

Of course, automotive emissions are a major part of the global warming issue.  Starting in 1977 with our first Honda Civic (36 mpg) we focused on fuel efficient vehicles.  In 1978 we purchased our Ford Econoline van as a six-cylinder vehicle in order to save fuel.  Both of our later Honda CRVs are highly efficient vehicles when driven properly.  Both are capable of well over 30 mpg on trips.  Loretta’s Lexus hybrid routinely gets 32 mpg in our driving mix, and more on a trip.

 

The chief offenders are the two pick-up trucks we purchased.  While both were fuel efficient “in their class” they did consume more fuel than I would have liked.  I broke my own rules because we needed each to perform some serious carrying and towing chores.

 

A last category for consideration, and a very important one, is home heating/air conditioning usage  In addition to keeping the house(s) very near the “not comfortable” level in hot and cold seasons, we became early adopters of heat pump technology. The use of heat pumps and the maintenance of interior temperatures at “barely comfortable” levels seems to be the best we can do for now.

 

Solar panels, which we first explored as an option at Clinton Rd. in the ‘70s, were not affordable for us then and cannot be used here because of HOA codes.  Clearly they are the wave of the future.  At Clinton Rd. we took a first step in this direction by converting the home furnace from oil to gas in 1978, both a cheaper and more environmentally friendly solution.

 

The steps listed above along with vigorous recycling constitute the measures we have taken across fifty years to be good stewards of the earth’s gifts. 

 

I know that it is a mixed record.

 

Outside our personal life, school settings often gave me the chance to affirm these values.  As “Mr. Earth Day” at MLHS I spearheaded very ambitious April clean-ups on both high school grounds, nearby woods, and the town as a whole.  I also ran the HS paper recycling operation.  Paterson Connection gave us a great opportunity to clean the canals below the Great Falls in the historic Alexander Hamilton “Society for Useful Manufactures” district.  We worked hard and fruitfully.

 

My first Earth Day clean-up was in a patch of woods just below and east of Verona HS.  I had to overcome significant resistance from our new asshole principal, who required a lengthy curriculum-based rationale as to why I should be permitted to take a group of my world history students out to do this work for forty-five minutes.

 

And the school circle was completed when I convinced the administration at Garinger HS, in about 1998, to allow me and a couple of fellow teachers to take students into an enclosed courtyard at GHS to clean up and thin out the jungle-like growth there which had accumulated during decades of neglect.

 

That’s all that comes to mind as I reflect on this vital concern.  

 

It is not enough but it is something.  

 

I hope that it will serve as a directional sign as we move into the coming turbulent years of climate dislocation.

 

My Father's Journal: "The Future"

The Future

By Ken Muir

 

Always, when I was a younger man, “the future” was an amorphous notion for me, something I had, but could not get a firm grip on.  

 

It was assumed to be large, commodious, full of promise...but who really knew how large?  

 

It was a question mark, but it held comfort, nonetheless.

 

Today, “the future” is waking up and looking across into my wife’s eyes…….one more day together.  

 

It is walking into the kitchen and starting a pot of coffee.  

 

It is running over in my mind the (now rather short...) list of things we have planned for this day. 

 

It is putting in place the list of activities we will engage in, knowing that I am able accomplish them and that they will round out another day. 

 

It is near term —very near term—plans to see loved ones.

 

Each day is now a small bet on something more to come. 

Each awakening is a hopeful down payment toward a tightly circumscribed future.

 

I’m game.

My Father's Journal: "T N T"

T N T

By Ken Muir

 

[John's Note: My dad, Ken,  a sophomore when this early December, 1963, championship game was played. The participants wore no protective equipment.]

TNT was the name of the social club (fraternity) that I pledged and belonged to during my two years at Harding College in Searcy, Arkansas. (’62-64)

 

A “small club,” we had only twenty-five members. After the rigors of pledge week and initiation we came together primarily for team sports events (flag football, basketball, softball, and track) and for social events, dinners, and outings, which were scripted once or twice in each semester.  We had a club queen and a sorority (Zeta Rho) with whom we were officially linked. We were not pressured to date Zeta Rho girls but there was a friendship bridge there.

 

Being a TNT member was the first time in my life that I had been truly part of something other than my family. And with the later exception of marriage, it would be the only time. It came to be the most meaningful development in my life during those two years other than my close friendship with my roommate, Delmer, for three semesters. And the intensity of that relationship was heightened significantly during my sophomore year when, because of my steadfast commitment to becoming a skilled “rag-tag” (flag football) player, I found myself sometimes included in the inner circle of club leadership….with the president, Eddy, his roommate Dave, and their suite-mate Gary. These three comprised the dynamic heart of the rag-tag squad and I felt privileged to be among them.

 

Our outings and initiation events in the “wilds of Arkansas” (farmlands, woods, etc.) are a story unto themselves, and I will not bore the reader with them here. But the sporting competitions were in a separate world of importance, and I will detail one of them.

 

While I played rag-tag, baseball, and volleyball during the intramural season and ran a leg of the 880-yard relay for TNT during the club season, it was flag football that was my -- and the club’s -- passion. I was a starter at defensive end in our four-man line and, on occasion if someone was injured, I played offensive end as well. Eight young men were on the field for each team.

 

TNT played so well, so dominantly, that it was determined that we couldn’t compete in the small club tournament. We were forced to compete for the school championship in the Big Club league (big clubs had forty or more members) throughout the season. Our opponent in this final game was Mohican, a storied group of guys who included in their rag-tag squad a large handful of varsity athletes who were “out of season,” that is, they were not varsity football players but rather varsity baseball, track, or basketball athletes. They were formidable opponents.

 

We were so sky high before the game that we could barely eat, flooded with adrenalin and noisy team spirit.

 

In a blood-soaked match that put four guys in the hospital, including our quarterback Gary, we prevailed over Mohican by a single touchdown. I defended my patch of corner ground as if my life depended on it, and several times as a play ended I lay on my back looking up at the night sky and the flood lights —having been steamrolled by a pair of Mohican blockers.

 

When Gary was pulled out late in the game to be taken to the hospital —bleeding heavily from the mouth because of a 90% severed tongue— I was called in to take over the offensive end spot. The regular end had moved to quarterback. Lining up opposite me was Larry, a mean and rangy junior who had delivered the chin-slug that put Gary in the hospital. 

On the first play from scrimmage Larry slammed me in the nose with the base of his hand…..all I could feel after that was blood draining across my lips and chin. I spent the remaining offensive plays of the game —fortunately they were few— diving across the line as the ball was snapped, doing my best to tangle him up, slow him down, and keep him out of our backfield.

 

Reading about the game days later (I still have the clipping in my ’64 yearbook) was one of the most exquisite moments of joy I had ever experienced until that time in my life. 

 

Looking back in subsequent years I came to understand full well why the armed forces want young men in the 18-22 years age bracket. 

We would have died for each other that night.

My Father's Journal: "Striving"

Striving

(Or “Giants”)

By Ken Muir

 

How we drive ourselves to excel.  How we push to distance ourselves from the competition, to be relative giants among our more dwarfish peers.

 

Is it just to make a better living than the next guy, to be a better provider for our loved ones than he is for his? Or is there something more subtle and insidious at work? Are we intrinsically competitive? If so, where does that get us?  Does it just make us faster runners than most in the game of American capitalism?

 

After seventy-nine years I still do not have a satisfactory answer. Yes, being an ample provider for our families is an estimable goal. And the delights of a comfortable material existence are undeniable…….what billions around the globe would not give to have them!  

 

But are there not people just as happy as we who live with less, live closer to Nature and who distance themselves from “the grind” but still find inner poise and happiness?

 

Perhaps all we need is to be adequate to the times, to find a way to function amicably and effectively in the era that we find ourselves in.  Looking at the grand sweep of history, do we truly need to rise above the mass of our fellow citizens?  Does our attempt to stand higher just make us the taller toadstool in the damp forest mass of toadstools?

 

Billions have lived and died before us. Ninety-nine per cent of them are unknown, unremarked.  Who knows today which were giants and which dwarves, except for those few noted in history? Is striving all it’s cracked up to be?

My Father's Journal: "Under My Hands"

Under My Hands

By Ken Muir

 

So much of memory is images locked in my brain, recollections flipping one to another in that cerebral footlocker.  How vivid, how strong they are.

 

Oddly, I find that among the strongest are tactile memories, the feel of so many materials, so many jobs, under my hands. 

 

Wood, sheetrock, PVC, stone, tools, wires, paint, leaves, soil….the list is nearly endless. 

 

I can still feel them there, each one, each substance, each a connection to work performed. 

 

For a man who made a decent living as a manipulator of ideas and words, this fascination with works of the hands is a bit odd, I guess. 

But somehow it completed me, it was a side of me that needed to find expression. It gave me an inner balance, a breadth which I somehow required.

 

And at bottom, I suppose, it gave small flesh to the idea of my being a pale, paltry imitation of the Renaissance Man………always a goal of mine but an outcome never achieved. 

 

Perhaps, however, I’ve made a good run at “jack of all trades.”

My Father's Journal: "Under Blue Skies & Canvas"

(JKM's Note: This week in my dad's journal, he ponders the pull of the Great Outdoors, and the impact of nature on his life).

Under Blue Skies & Canvas

By Ken Muir

 

If we are fortunate in life there is a place where an arrival lifts our spirits immediately. For me that place is the woods. Ever since I was quite young, arrival in a patch of woods lifted my spirits and raised prospects of fun.

 

I mull the possibility that my very early experiences on my grandmother’s farm in Gore, Oklahoma, kindled in me a love for being outdoors.  (This part of my life would have been during 1944-45 while my father was still in combat in Italy.) According to family lore, I was given a measure of freedom in roaming the farm property.  Robert’s return to Gore in June, 1945, changed everything and set in motion our family life.

 

Settling in our rented spaces, first on Fairfield Ave. in West Caldwell (the house, barn and outhouse are long gone) and then at 212 Baldwin St. in Glen Ridge, allowed this penchant for “woodsy wandering” to grow even further.  But our 1952 relocation to 115 Winding Way in Cedar Grove (the first house the family owned) gave wide room to my desire to explore undeveloped and forested areas.  There was a small patch of woods literally a stone’s throw from our backyard, as well as a larger one at the north end of the block.

 

Peckman’s Brook, which winds through much of the center of Cedar Grove, along with the large, open acreage around the Essex County Mental Hospital (Overbrook), gave us spacious areas to discover and use for imaginative play and for hunting down poor amphibious & reptilian creatures. “Playing guns” was our default activity, with either WW II or the Cowboy West being our chosen milieu.  Using my father’s cast-off military bits and the German Army helmet he brought home from Italy;  a spice of historical reality inspired our combative fantasies.

 

As we were permitted to roam further and further from home, the large, forested area west of Fairview Avenue became our favored playground. While on a map this is “Second Watchung Mountain,” we knew it simply as “the mountain.”  Comprised of scores of acres of woodland, the area was completely undev-eloped as late as the 1970s. The climb was demanding, quite steep in places….rock strewn, vine entangled. During the 1930s there had been a competitive motorcycle climb here. Carrying our hunting knives, we climbed and ran about joyously.

 

Nestled in this mid-fifties time frame was the event which likely had the greatest influence; one month at Camp Hunt during the summer of 1955. Situated in the rolling hills and farm country outside Hubbards-ville, NY, this first stay at camp was the happiest month of my life up to that point……new friends and experiences,  Nature close at hand all around, freedom from Ellen’s repressive regime….There was a subtle magic here for me.

 

The boy campers stayed in army surplus, eight-man pyramidal tents, sleeping on wire-spring, steel-frame cots.  The mattress was 2-3 inches thick, covered in cotton ticking.  A sheet and an army blanket from home completed the accommodations, and the bed had to be made up for a demanding inspection each morning, a quarter made to bounce from mid-bed. When not in the daily Bible-based classes and worship services,  I amused myself with Huckleberry Finnand Goodbye Mr. Chips.

 

The greatest joy, however, came from our daily activities, most of them out of doors.  We swam in a true, mud-bottomed, reed- filled, frog-equipped swimming hole almost every day.  Softball and other group games were frequent, but the games of “capture the flag” with more than seventy participants were the greatest joy. Frequent trips, on foot or by auto, spiced our daily routine; Chenango County waterfalls, wilderness fire towers, swim spots in the Finger Lakes region, “snipe hunts,” and just plain old hikes through the woods by day or by night——-all entertained us and made the days pass quickly. And every night the canopy of brilliant stars soared above us, undimmed by light pollution.

 

And the end of each day was unvarying; the playing of ”Taps” by the bugler and the settling down under canvas fragrant with the paraffin solution used to preserve it and keep it waterproof.

 

Thus began my lifelong love of tenting.

 

A return to Camp Hunt three years later,  this time with Jerry accompanying me and for only a two-week stay, lacked the magic of that first sojourn.  But that first month, in July, 1955, was jewel-like,  garnished with bumptious “canteen” visits every afternoon where candy and “soda-pop” could be purchased via our personal accounts.

 

And sweetest of all was my first romantic crush…on Millie Summerlin, a student from Freed-Hardeman College who worked as a camp counselor. She was eighteen and I eleven, but what the heck….I could dream..…!

 

My returning home with the “Best Camper Boy” medal—-and the Verona-Cedar Grove Times article it triggered—-was sweet also.  My Dad said little but was proud.

 

Seven years later, TNT club outings at Harding College just reinforced this love of living outdoors, even if I had only a single blanket for ground sleeping in late October.  Farmlands and woods hosted our adventures.

 

An eleven-year hiatus then intervened as “our life” took on whole new directions.   Marriage, jobs, children, housing ——a host of more important concerns shouldered aside any possibilities of camping out.

 

Brookdale Park and the other lovely Essex County parks (Edgemont Park and Verona Park were also among our favorites) subbed in as outdoor spaces when Lara and John were very young. Each park possessed its own beauty and wonder.

 

But soon the kids were old enough to carry stuff,  and we were off to parts and parks previously unexplored!! Hacklebarney State Park, Stokes State Forest, Tillman’s Ravine, Ringwood Manor Park

and many lesser woodsy and historic places soon joined our list of destinations.

 

The acquisition of the “old blue truck” (1955 International Harvester Step-van) from our neighbors the Alts again changed the rotational axis of our world.

 

While no truly smart person would ever have purchased the “old blue truck,” Ken forged ahead with the idea in hope that it would open up a camping future for the family.  It did…after a fashion. Despite its intermittent mechanical problems, the truck, now equipped with a home-built tent storage box overhead, made possible trips to Allaire State Park,  Newport, RI, the Adirondack Mountains, Williamsburg, VA,  Wilmington, NC and other locations. We pitched our tents in each of these scenic spots and ..usually.. came home with dry canvas. Iconic historical sites were central to each trip, as three years of blue truck travel sped quickly by.  Our appetite for truck-based camping was now fully whetted, and we waited anxiously until we could afford a new truck to extend our range and comfort.

 

In April of 1978 we purchased our very empty Ford Econoline. 150 van in two-tone green($5800) Its only interior amenity was a driver’s seat on a pedestal. We promptly went to work cutting holes everywhere…..for sliding,  screened side windows, for a roof scoop air vent, for a commodious roof rack and for an iconic Iron Cross window in the sliding door.   Long-fiber green carpet fastened to plywood soon lined all four surfaces of the truck interior, and a sofa bed and home-built cabinetry completed the rear cabin accommodations.   In front, the driver and passenger relished the comfort and support of twin leatherette captain’s chairs.  The engine was a “straight six.”

 

These improvements were bittersweet because much of the cost was underwritten by the $1,000 sale of our beloved 1968 Plymouth Barracuda ($3,400 new). But we needed the cash and no longer had room in the driveway for the new truck, the ’77 Honda Civic and the ‘Cuda.

 

Our “shakedown trip” in the new truck was to North Carolina during the summer of 1978.  Junkyard seats served in the rear because we had not yet acquired the faux leather sofa-bed.   A state park near Wilmington was our destination,  and we experienced the delight of 88-degree water temperatures for the first time……..not exactly the Jersey shore! 

 

1978 also featured our camping trip to Orlando, Florida.  We toured Disney World, learned to “live wet” in tents,  and we loved Christopher Reeve in “Superman”!!

 

1979 turned out to be the culmination of all we had been working toward…….our inaugural cross-country camping trip! First pitching our tents on the shores of Lake Michigan, we moved steadily across the Upper Plains states and the Pacific Northwest.  We ultimately camped in fourteen states and stayed out for six full weeks, putting 10,000 miles on the odometer. The weather was great and the scenery spectacular.

 

I will not recall the details of this trip, as they are too manifold

 

Several hundred Kodak slides document our travels, and you kids were now old enough to remember many of the details…….and the occasional drama!  Suffice to say, it was the greatest travel that I ever experienced. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula,  the Badlands. and the dinosaur park in the Dakotas, the Devil’s Tower, Yellowstone National Park and the beauty of the Tetons, the Clearwater River Valley, the Snake River and the vast Columbia, Portland, the first views of the Pacific, our hideaway campsite in southern Oregon just in from the Coast,  San Francisco with its myriad wonders, Yosemite National Park,  redwood stands and “all things John Muir,” camping at Lake Tahoe, back to Utah for the Dinosaur National Monument and the Green River Gorge, the final descent through the Front Range of the Rockies,  relaxing in the shadow of Long’s Peak beside crystal clear,  snow-melt streams and waterfalls.. We filled our memory banks as well as slide trays with gorgeous images of America’s natural beauty.

 

Our second cross-country trip three years later was but a pale imitation of the first.  Crossing the country now from the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee to the Gulf in Alabama,  and then west via New Orleans, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. We arrived at the  Pacific once again,  this time in San Diego.  Nevada regaled us with the beauties of Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam. Reno charmed us briefly, and then we headed east across Utah. Bryce and Zion national parks awed with their beauty.  Colorado served once again as our gateway out of the West, and we headed for home. 

 

Camping in ten or more states, spending almost five weeks “on the road,” we again logged 10,000 miles and witnessed America and Americans at first hand…….doing our own version of the iconic book, “Blue Highways” by Wm. L H Moon.

 

Inevitably, much of my enjoyment of these trips,  especially the first, was informed by my considerable reading about the opening of the American West. The beautiful prose of Bernard DeVoto stands out especially here, and I am afraid that this internal, reading-based vision of the natural world around us led to seemingly interminable vistas of rock formations, lush forests,  and mountain ranges.  I apologize to you three fellow travelers….thanks for indulging me.

 

Our tenting travel took a back seat for a while after 1982, as we spent several happy summers at Deer Lake in NJ.  GRHS marching band and all the panoply of high school activities took center stage for several years, and then the 1987 purchase of a home building lot in Mint Hill changed the family’s life trajectory profoundly.  College plans and aspirations, critical promotions at Ken’s job,  house-painting summers, and the advent of romance and marriage in our children’s lives added whole new dimensions to our happy life journey. Only at Jekyll Island, Georgia, did we again put up our tents during these very busy years.

 

Ken’s penchant for camping and “living under canvas” went through one more iteration following our move to North Carolina.  In a first abortive attempt, we bought in Rutherford a used pop-up camper trailer which we towed down here with our F-150 Ford pick-up.  It sat unused on the rear apron for eight years, as we were too busy with the new house and property and with our new jobs to find the time to use it.

 

Finally, in 2005,  a chance visit to a camping store in Matthews introduced us to a new  idea…..a camping trailer with fold-out, canvas-shrouded sleeping areas at both ends.  We spent several months searching NC for the “perfect” camper,  and ultimately selected a 25’ Jayco model. $15,800 later we were ready to roll!!

 

Life, however, had its own plan,  and two cancer diagnoses in ten years played havoc with our travel hopes.  We managed to pull off several trips in NC along with one to Alabama and one to Virginia. 

 

And travel was made easier when we swapped the F-150 for a 2008 Toyota Tundra truck.  It offered smooth towing power all day long!

 

Our new circumstances forced the sale of the Jayco in 2016, and our “life under canvas” came, too soon, to an end.  The “blue skies,” however, remain!