I was excited. Finally after a couple years I was going to another Gathering. The last time I had gone to a National, it was to do research for my thesis. I had promised to provide some feedback. Now I would be able to do it. It is a special feeling to be going home after a few years.
The next morning I was up bright and early -in fact I was ready to go by just after 7:30. I should have known better. Sally is not a morning person. Her morning routines are complex and I suspect tiring and hard on her and her helpers.. We had agreed the previous night that we were going to have an early start. I believed them. The others were not breakfast people, so I went alone to eat while they were assisting Sally. The little restaurant attached the the campground/ motel only had one employee. She both took our orders and, cook the breakfast and served the meal. Perhaps that is why they used paper plates and plastic utensils- so the she did have to do the dishes as well. The breakfast was good and as the restaurant was a local hangout, I got to observe some old guys sit around and gossip.
There are, I am sure, thousands if not millions of similar places across North America. Perhaps such places exist in every corner of the world. I don't know because I have not visited every corner, but I have eaten breakfast in small restaurants from Newfoundland to West Virginia to Salt Spring Island. And in all of them, older men gathered for coffee before they start their day. Sometimes the group is comprised of mainly retirees, other times the group appears to me a mixture of older guys who are still working and those who are not. The working men are first to leave knowing, I am sure, that they are going to be talked about as soon as they leave. The men meet because they are good friends and because they share so many common cultural values. Within some groups younger men do, on occasion, attend but it frequently seems to me that they have a lesser status.
By the time I finished my breakfast (which included eavesdropping on the conversation until the old guys had left) I sort of hoped that we would be nearly ready to get the van packed. Of course they were not ready and they had decided to have breakfast. I spent the time pacing around the van. It was almost 12:00 before we pulled out of the driveway.
The drive to the main gate of the Gathering was spectacular. Unlike some other Gatherings I have been to, it was easy to find and the roads were great. No logging roads, or long stretches of a dirt road with stones as sharp as knives - for almost all of the way, it was well paved with no cracks or pot holes. Of course it was going into a National Forest and our roads into Algonquin or Banff National parks are just as good. But what made the road so spectacular was the view of St. Helen's. One could easily see where literally the mountain " blew it's top". It is completely flat on the top. Quite amazing.
When we got to where people had started to park their cars, we just kept on going on the assumption that (1) that the wheelchair would be our pass to parking as close to the trail head as possible and (2) that the people managing the parking would know Sally. I was right on both accounts. We got as close anyone got because of the chair and people we waiting and ready to help unpack the car.
It was so much easier than the last time Sally and I travelled to a Gathering. This time it was only about a 20 minute walk along a relatively level dirt road from where we left the van until we got to where Sally would likely stay. Once the van was unpacked and I knew approximately where Sally was going to be, I kept going trying to get to "my kitchen", the kitchen I am most comfortable with, the kitchen I did my research at. It is called Instant Soup.
The next morning I was up bright and early -in fact I was ready to go by just after 7:30. I should have known better. Sally is not a morning person. Her morning routines are complex and I suspect tiring and hard on her and her helpers.. We had agreed the previous night that we were going to have an early start. I believed them. The others were not breakfast people, so I went alone to eat while they were assisting Sally. The little restaurant attached the the campground/ motel only had one employee. She both took our orders and, cook the breakfast and served the meal. Perhaps that is why they used paper plates and plastic utensils- so the she did have to do the dishes as well. The breakfast was good and as the restaurant was a local hangout, I got to observe some old guys sit around and gossip.
There are, I am sure, thousands if not millions of similar places across North America. Perhaps such places exist in every corner of the world. I don't know because I have not visited every corner, but I have eaten breakfast in small restaurants from Newfoundland to West Virginia to Salt Spring Island. And in all of them, older men gathered for coffee before they start their day. Sometimes the group is comprised of mainly retirees, other times the group appears to me a mixture of older guys who are still working and those who are not. The working men are first to leave knowing, I am sure, that they are going to be talked about as soon as they leave. The men meet because they are good friends and because they share so many common cultural values. Within some groups younger men do, on occasion, attend but it frequently seems to me that they have a lesser status.
By the time I finished my breakfast (which included eavesdropping on the conversation until the old guys had left) I sort of hoped that we would be nearly ready to get the van packed. Of course they were not ready and they had decided to have breakfast. I spent the time pacing around the van. It was almost 12:00 before we pulled out of the driveway.
The drive to the main gate of the Gathering was spectacular. Unlike some other Gatherings I have been to, it was easy to find and the roads were great. No logging roads, or long stretches of a dirt road with stones as sharp as knives - for almost all of the way, it was well paved with no cracks or pot holes. Of course it was going into a National Forest and our roads into Algonquin or Banff National parks are just as good. But what made the road so spectacular was the view of St. Helen's. One could easily see where literally the mountain " blew it's top". It is completely flat on the top. Quite amazing.
When we got to where people had started to park their cars, we just kept on going on the assumption that (1) that the wheelchair would be our pass to parking as close to the trail head as possible and (2) that the people managing the parking would know Sally. I was right on both accounts. We got as close anyone got because of the chair and people we waiting and ready to help unpack the car.
It was so much easier than the last time Sally and I travelled to a Gathering. This time it was only about a 20 minute walk along a relatively level dirt road from where we left the van until we got to where Sally would likely stay. Once the van was unpacked and I knew approximately where Sally was going to be, I kept going trying to get to "my kitchen", the kitchen I am most comfortable with, the kitchen I did my research at. It is called Instant Soup.
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