Category: Silver Years

Each spring, if you had a freshly minted doctorate in the biological sciences, you became a potential candidate for the annual auction block. The major auction was held at the meetings of the Federation of American Scientists in Experimental Biology (FASEB) in Atlantic City. The purpose given for these meetings was not to find a job but to present a scientific research paper in one of the areas represented by some two-dozen scientific societies, one of which was the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. And so, in April 1961, I ventured to the Board Walk in New Jersey and its convention center which, at the time, was the only one large enough to accommodate several thousand researchers at the same event.

As did other graduate students, I heard many lectures on biochemistry, a field which mixed together chemists and biologists of all stripes and conditions. It was difficult to tell the difference between a biochemical-microbiologist and a microbiological-biochemist, let alone an organic chemist and a biochemist. Sixty years ago, these distinctions did not matter as much as they might today. Back then, a common language was spoken and understood by the vast majority of those in related fields. Today, biochemical grammars, dialects and vocabularies differ between geneticists and virologists, for example, as much as they might among French, Italian and Spanish linguists.

At the time I was searching for an academic position in which a common biochemical tongue was spoken. The problem, however, was that few academic institutions wanted to hire faculty who did not speak an advanced version of my new language. Instead of hiring junior faculty members, most of them wanted to engage postdoctoral fellows, paid for by federal training grants. The usual yearly stipend amounted to $6,000. However, as a “stipend,” instead of a “salary,” the funds were tax-free for federal income tax purposes. This amount was certainly better than the $300 per month stipend for a graduate fellowship or assistantship that I had been receiving.

I had fifteen-minute interviews with representatives from several institutions. (Speed-dating for millennial couples was invented much later, and probably was based on his employment model.) My preference leaned toward an opening for an Instructor in the biochemistry department at the University of Vermont Medical School; it paid $7,000 a year. But no offer was made. Postdoctoral positions with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and with the Texas Tech College in Lubbock sounded interesting, but who would really choose to move to that part of the country for advanced education? I did not receive any help from Dr. Wright, my own mentor, who spent most of his time in his hotel room in Atlantic City as a result of food poisoning, he had picked up his first night at the FASEB meetings.

I finally accepted a postdoctoral training-grant fellowship with Lucile Smith, Ph.D., in the Biochemistry Department at the Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire. I would have to change my field of research and was not sure how Dr. Wright would accept this upon our return to Ithaca. On the other hand, it was my future and I had to choose between continuing in lipid research, especially cholesterol, and a new endeavor in something called “electron transport,” the biochemical methodology for the transformation of molecular energy from glucose so that it could be used for all of the other processes found in living organisms. Although I knew nothing of the intimate details of the process, I believed I could, over the next few years, learn a lot about an enzyme called “cytochrome oxidase.” And I did.

Couples have very little stuff to move for their first real home after marriage. That was certainly true for us when we transferred from the one-bedroom apartment of a graduate student at Cornell to a two-bedroom duplex of a postdoctoral fellow at Dartmouth Med. We thought that two trips in our new microbus might accomplish the move. We had traded in our gray VW bug in the spring of 1961 for an expanded VW caterpillar which was pale green and yellow. There was plenty of space, once the middle seat had been removed, certainly enough for a few pieces of furniture and boxes of clothes and stuffed toys Debbie had already begun to accumulate. We looked forward to a shared duplex in Hanover that would be available in June, with the ending of the academic year, when junior faculty would be moving on to the next stages of their own careers.

Technically, the position of a postdoctoral fellow was not a real faculty position; those started with an appointment as an Instructor. We were entitled, however, to rent a partially furnished duplex at the Rivercrest apartments on Lyme Road. The complex housed, primarily, beginning faculty and fellows, at a very reasonable cost. The units were located only a few miles from the medical school, well within walking distance if required. Karen did not drive at the time and so the likelihood was that I, myself, would commute to the lab each day.

Since none of the apartments would be available until turnover time in June, we would need to store our limited belongings somewhere in Hanover. Dr. Lafayette Noda, chairman of the Biochemistry department at Dartmouth Med, kindly offered the use of his barn on his farm in the village of Enfield, near Hanover. He had a wonderful house built in the 1700s, where he and his wife, Mayme, lived with their children. I was envious. It would be a dream to reside in a restored dwelling, dating back to colonial times. We gratefully left our first load of stuff with him.

However, we should have arrived on our final journey to his farm one day earlier than we did. The night before our second arrival in June, his dog had chased a skunk into the barn. The black and white critter stood his ground; his presence would last for the first month of our life in New Hampshire.

We were able to transfer our boxes to our new duplex, where their contents remained inside only at night. Every morning, we hauled much of our clothing and stuffed materials, our daughter’s toys, out to the yard. There they sat in the bright, warm sun of a summer’s day in New England. Each evening, they were carried back into the apartment, the door of which was kept open most of the time. We never did find out what our new neighbors thought about our actions. We did not ask. Ultimately, sunlight did its job and we were able to reacquire most of our clothing and Debbie’s toys. Fortunately, there is little rain in the Connecticut valley in June.

The duplex held the mandatory two families. Fortunately for our sharing family, the units were not side-by-side but joined back-to-back. Our front doors were not close; neither were the other units located at Rivercrest. We never really did get to know any of the young families living near us. Perhaps, our odorous entrance did have an effect. The man living behind us was a junior member of the ROTC faculty. He was addicted to cleanliness and order. Several times a week, especially during the winter, he would remove all of the chrome-work from his car and scour away the dirt and, in particular, the road salt that had collected there, and required his deepest attention.

Our only neighborly interaction in the complex was the result of Pokey, a small beagle we had acquired for Debbie shortly after moving to Hanover. Pokey coveted anything left in the yards of our neighbors. Karen had the daily task of returning items to their owners. We never felt completely welcomed into the Hanover community during our first year. Fortunately, it didn’t last. The following spring, we moved into town.

There were differences in the life of a graduate student and that of a postdoctoral fellow who was not quite a faculty member. The differences were probably similar to those changes evident in other lifestyles with an evolution from communal living to an independent life. Undergraduates resided in dormitories and fraternity houses. Graduate students rented apartments near other students and spent mutual time in play and in inexpensive social gatherings. Postdoctoral fellows began having a home separated from their friends and acquaintances. This was the path we followed as we settled into our new duplex on Lyme Road on the outskirts of Hanover.

As with any livable structure built in the north, especially in New England, there was a basement, a place not only for storage but also for getting away from others, an opportunity for a few minutes of isolation. Some might have a playroom, family-room, or den. I had a study.

It was not a separate, paneled place for thoughts and scholarly work. Rather, it was constructed by a bamboo screen nailed to three edges of a flat door supported by bricks in order to make a desk. I had an intimate cave thanks to its bamboo walls surrounding me. The desk chair had wheels that kept getting trapped in the corduroy of the throw-rug meant to keep my feet separated from the concrete floor of our cellar. However, an electric floor-heater was still required during most of the year. It was a very comfortable place to read scientific journals in the evening, especially late at night when Karen and Deb were sound asleep in each of the two bedrooms making up our new, four-room apartment.

The grey living room couch was part of our rental furnishings offered by the College. Fortunately, so were the kitchen appliances. We were able to add a television set, one that was huge in its wooden furniture case and small in the size of its screen. We added a brown armchair to the red one we had transferred from Ithaca. A small duplex apartment for a newly funded fellow and his wife and small child does not need much furniture.

And then there was the bed in our own room. We no longer shared sleeping (and crying) quarters with our daughter, who had her own crib in her own room. As for the bed, it had its own long history.

We had spent many vacation hours that summer in Sandusky refinishing the still-usable bedroom furniture Karen’s parents were donating to us. We thought the gallons of turpentine we had used to strip off the old coating would be sufficient preparation for re-staining the wood of the bed’s headboard and footboard. It wasn’t. The result was a very bubbled surface that would not be covered by anything we tried. We finally left the shabby results with her folks for their finding a way to redo the efforts we had endured for the two weeks of our vacation between graduate school and our new life after student-hood.

Our most pleasant and unexpected event while living on Lyme Road was Hanover’s first snow fall. Coming from northeastern Ohio and the Finger Lake region of New York, we had experienced snow – the white stuff that quickly turned to gray sludge and frozen ice banks. Here, in New England, on the morning after a foot of snow had fallen on the hills around us, I drove toward the campus and was overcome by the beauty surrounding me.

The pine trees were blanketed with heavy mantles of white fur. I had never seen a winter’s day with such a magnificent beginning. Being certain that it would melt away as did all of the snow I had viewed over twenty years of my life, I forced myself to return on the neatly plowed road to our apartment where Karen and Deb bundled up to join me with camera in hand to record the true wonderland surrounding us. Karen and I knew it would disappear within a few days as it turned into the usual slush. We were wrong.

The white snow remained as low mountains on the trees and ground of New Hampshire for the next five months! It did not melt. It never turned to frozen, gray stuff but rather remained as fluff – which differs significantly from “stuff.” At last, I had found the true impact of a New England winter shown on every Christmas card based on a Currier and Ives print, but now one in three dimensions extending from white grounds to a clear, blue sky.

There are times, now in Houston, when I long to renew my acquaintance with that stuff. I miss the reds, golds, and yellows of the autumnal hills even more. The sound of leaves crunching under foot and the incense of once-allowed burning leaves may be found only in semi-forgotten memories.

We had moved from Ithaca to Hanover in the summer of 1961 and enjoyed living in our duplex on Lyme Rd for almost a full year. But with spring, there came the time for us to move once more. Although I still technically remained a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Noda, chairman of the Biochemistry department, thought I might be offered the title of Instructor. It would look good on my resume, even if I were not a full-time member of the faculty. Like others in the department, I taught part of the general biochemistry lectures given to all medical students. As a result of my doctoral work at Cornell, I had been assigned to cover the topic of “lipids.” Cholesterol was only one form of a lipid; but I managed to include all of the regular fats and fatty acids as well as fat-soluble vitamins and phospholipids needed for cellular structures!

In April 1962 we moved to a new apartment building at 10 North Park, a ten-minute walk from the medical school. We now began to develop a life with friends, especially couples residing in our building, as well as several living along the near-by lane where other junior faculty were housed.

Chuck and Jackie Mayer were Canadians who lived in the apartment on the first floor. We lived on the second, along with the Moores. Chuck was in the Business School and Ken Moore was in Pharmacology in the Medical School.

Interestingly, Dartmouth College took great pride in being a College with its Schools, rather than a University composed of Colleges. In 1819, Daniel Webster had defended the independent College concept when the state of New Hampshire had tried to make Dartmouth into a state university.

Other junior faculty from the Biochemistry department lived down the lane from us. Our best friends were Ed and Shirley Westhead; their daughter, Vickie, was our daughter’s best playmate. They would meet on our porch for hours, quite often engaged in a game of argument. One would repeatedly shout “no” in response to the other one shouting “yes.” Then one would say, “Now it’s your turn” and they would reverse who said “yes” and who said “no.”

The Wishnia children were equally interesting, but more provoking. Arnold, their father, spoke to them only in German; their mother only in French. Their parenting concept was that their children would learn English by playing with their peers. The problem came, however, when no other parent could chastise them in English, if discipline were needed because of a childhood confrontation. English, it seems, was the language for play and not for instruction on how to behave. They could be reprimanded only in German or French!

Arnold also had two related foibles his friends tried to appreciate. If he became bored in a conversation at a party in someone’s apartment, he would find a book and curl up in an armchair to pass the time. His reading extended to several languages in books checked out of the college library. When he left Dartmouth, the legend goes, he was requested not to return all of his borrowed books at one time. Meanwhile, potential readers were instructed to contact him directly if they needed something originally checked out to him.

Living in our apartment on North Park was a pleasant experience for me. Although we had a second floor apartment, an external door in my study (I now had a real one!) opened directly onto the adjoining hill. I often escaped for a short walk to the Bema, a student gathering place in the woods surrounding our building. In warm weather, faculty couples living around us would gather for picnics on the lawn around our apartment building. Shared dinners were not uncommon. A communal life was once again being established as it had been done among young families no matter where they lived or how they were employed.

As with almost all couples who comprise early friendships, we never saw them again once we left Hanover, although Ed Westhead was, later, a member of the Biochemistry department at the University of Massachusetts when we lived in Amherst. At one time, I considered him my closest friend and colleague in Hanover. Time, itself, can wear away relationships, unless we make a special effort to preserve them. Weathering can cause mountains to turn into plains. Human decades act in the same way as eons do for stone.

Every little girl needs a stuffed toy that is bigger than she is. For Debbie it was a monkey. For adults it could have been a monkey on her back, but for a three-year-old toddler, it was a monkey on her trike. They often took turns riding it or posing on it. This monkey was a critter with a head three times the size of our daughter’s, and with a bright red bowtie. Strangely it had no name. It simply existed, for a brief time at least, and no doubt joined toy donations to other kids somewhere along the way.

The monkey was not another “Meow” – the small stuffed kitten Deb loving carried by its tail or in a small suitcase. Fortunately, she did not attempt to carry “Fluff” the same way. After-all, Fluff was a real kitten that arrived as a replacement for Pokie, the beagle, on our move from the openness of the Rivercrest duplexes to the multiplex apartments of North Park.

It’s also possible the monkey was dismissed in favor of a Chatty Cathy who was far from a silent creature, when Deb pulled her cord eliciting such comments as “I love you” or “Please take me with you.”

She also had a green hobbyhorse to ride, but not to feed nor groom. That came later, when we lived near the stables of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, but that is another story. For now, our daughter usually remained indoors, wearing slippers with holes where her toes stuck out. It took some effort for her to don a snowsuit to play outdoors for only a short time during a cold, but bright, New Hampshire winter.

The best time in winter was, of course, at Christmas, when our small apartment was decorated with holiday cards scotch-taped to the paneled walls, and stars, made from a complex pattern of red, plastic drinking straws, hung from the high-pitched ceiling. It was later, in Bethesda, Maryland, that these soda-straw stars were joined by wreaths made from IBM punch-cards covered with gilded spray-paint.

Winter, during the bright month of January, was also the time for Dartmouth’s “Winter Carnival,” when students worked for hours, if not days, constructing ice sculptures, admired week-long by the townspeople, as the figures slowly melted into large lumps. The rest of the time, of course, was spent by the Dartmouth men for studying as well as for hiking (often on snowshoes) through the surrounding forests and mountains.

These young men often served as relatively low-paid babysitters. Back then the College, at the undergraduate level, was only for men. Deb seemed to like them as well as the nurses from the Mary Hitchcock Hospital, which served Dartmouth Med as the place for clinical practice. During our brief two years in Hanover, we never had a problem in finding someone to be with her whenever we wanted to take in a movie downtown or a play or a symphony at the new Arts Center next to the Hanover Inn, a great place for dinner, when we could scrape together the funds for an evening out.

With the economic restrictions of a postdoctoral fellow, we more frequently went to Lou’s Restaurant, especially for a Sunday morning breakfast after mass at Saint Bridget’s, a block away. The Green Lantern was another place for an above average dinner-out. The “Agora” in the Arts Center was less expensive, as testified by the Indians who went there for coffee and burgers. The Biochemistry faculty enjoyed the Faculty Lounge in the Arts Center as a place to dine and drink on weekends. Many members, but not us, had reserved bottles of wine for imbibing when dining. We were, indeed, only para-faculty and did not have our own stash but were occasionally allowed as guest-tasters. Our usual parties were held in our apartments on North Park.

It was always pleasant and invigorating, to live in a small college town, especially one like Hanover with its history going back to colonial days. We even celebrated the town’s Bicentennial with its evening fireworks and an afternoon parade around the College Commons with townspeople well-dressed for the 1700s. Several even played on fifes and drums as they marched.

The only social activity, other than partying, was a rare game of tennis. Karen and I owned rackets; the courts were at the end of the lane passing our apartment. She was much better than I would ever be. On the other hand, our true social life in New England had to wait for our return to Amherst Massachusetts a decade later.

Female mentors have always been uncommon, especially in the sciences. That was certainly the case when Dr. Lucile Smith was my mentor or supervisor during my two years of post-doctoral research at Dartmouth Med. Lucile, with only one “L,” was an international expert in a field called “electron transport.” This process was associated with the mitochondria of every cell that used it to transform the biochemical energy found in glucose into usable energy needed by all living cells. Structural elements, consisting mostly of protein-particles called cytochromes, assisted in the production of a biochemical energy form: ATP (adenosine triphosphate). The particular enzyme Lucile and I studied was cytochrome c oxidase, an enzyme isolated from fresh beef hearts.

Every few weeks I made a trip to a slaughter house located in a village about an hour’s drive from Hanover. Although the butchers were accustomed to my request to have a freshly obtained cow heart placed in a bucket of ice, they still were puzzled by why I would want one. Legend has it that other butchers were equally puzzled when Lucile made similar requests during her own graduate work in Rochester, New York. Her undergraduate studies had occurred at Sophie Newcomb, the woman’s college of Tulane University in New Orleans. When she moved to Rochester, she, too, had to go to the local abattoir in search of what she needed: “pig hearts.” Unfortunately, the New York butcher presented her with a large, iced container of “pig hocks,” the result of her Louisiana accent. When I went to my New Hampshire abattoir for beef hearts, I brought back, inexpensive fresh steaks! They were excellent for grilling – even on the porch during mid-winter.

Lucile never lost her southern charm, although her accent did become more “yankeefied.” She did retain, most pleasantly, a southern taste for coffee. Every afternoon, she boiled a pot. The rich ground coffee beans were placed in a kettle along with egg shells and the water brought to a boil, followed by a long simmer. The mixture was poured through a paper filter suspended in a large laboratory-funnel and consumed as hot as possible in lab beakers. The potion made conversation among all of those from adjoining labs to be a very pleasant afternoon interlude.

Another southern habit made Lucile different from all of the male biochemists I knew. Every Friday afternoon she was scheduled for a hair appointment at a local beauty salon. Other than that, there was no professional difference in my having a female mentor. During our two years working together, we published three scientific articles in the “Journal of Biological Chemistry” and in “Biochemistry.”

As my second year was drawing to a close, I had to choose the next step in the development of my academic career. Dr. Noda, the Chairman of our department, was willing to keep me on as an Instructor, but I was not sure this was a “good” idea. Having served as a post-doctoral fellow, I might continue not to appear as a “real” faculty member. I thought it would be better for me to move and, perhaps, to return to Dartmouth Med later in my career.

Lucile encouraged me to join the laboratory of Dr. E.C. Slater, who was the Chair of the Biochemistry Department at the Medical School for the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands. They were close friends and she was willing to sponsor me with him. I seriously considered the possibility; even if I did not speak Dutch. Karen and I would have had an entirely different future than the one we actually shared, if I had decided to go. The only thing that stopped me was my mother, who was sure she would die if I moved to Europe. She also thought I would be in danger; and this was long before the time of terrorists.

Lucile had another friend, Dr. Tsoo E. King, who was a Professor in the Science Research Institute of the Oregon State University. In an interview with him, he assured me of a faculty position as a Research Assistant Professor in the University. I accepted. Corvallis, Oregon was 2,500 miles from Niles, Ohio; but they were, at least, on the same continent.

October of 1962 was dark, cold and rainy in Hanover, New Hampshire. It was also the month when the world almost ended. The potential ending began about October 16 with a report from President Kennedy that the Russians were sending missiles to be housed on the island of Cuba. Every evening, we heard more about the possible threat that could launch a war backed by the Soviet Union through armaments, perhaps nuclear weapons, located only moments from our shores. Back then, news coverage was much more limited than the 24/7 reports from today’s television, computer sites and cellphones. News came mainly in the dark of early evening. In between broadcasts, we prayed.

St Bridget was the local Catholic parish for Hanover. The pastor was Fr. Pitts. He kept the Church open and available for private gatherings at all hours. For the days between October 16 and October 28 the pews were well-occupied. I, myself, prayed there on several evenings.

My memories of that fortnight of the October crisis have been greatly limited over the intervening years. Prayer and worried discussions between faculty and students. An inward directedness. I do not recall the details; the photographs of the missile sites on the island have become blurred in my mind’s eye. The announcement that Khrushchev finally agreed to turn the ships away from Cuba remained only in archives, not in my personal memory. Nothing seemed real. It was a fantasy, a terrible nightmare that was present while we were awake. It came and went; we were able to take deep breaths, once more.

October passed into November and then into the bright days of sunshine of December in New England. The snows once more covered the fields and hills around the town. It became more difficult to drive to the top of Moose Mountain where our friends, Ann and Elisha Huggins, lived. But one bright day in mid-December, Karen, Debbie and I were invited to make the sojourn. It was time to get a Christmas tree. What better way to set aside the darkness of October than by cutting down our own tree from a mountain top owned by friends.

The three of us piled into our microbus and with great effort made our way up the very narrow road to a modern log cabin overlooking a green and white valley. However, by the time we started to look at the trees Elisha showed us, dusk had rapidly fallen, and our search was compromised. We did find a pine tree, took a hack saw to it, and tied the tree to the top of our VW. It was not until the next morning, in the light of a new day, that we realized what we had really cut down.

The pine needles seen as deep green in the early evening were now brown and brittle – at least that’s how the remaining ones appeared. The tree was the worst example of any Christmas tree we had ever seen – except, perhaps, the one owned by Charlie Brown. There was no way our attempts at decoration would change its appearance. Karen decided she and our three-year-old daughter should return to the mountain. A call to Elisha and Ann said I would drop the two of them off at the base of the dirt road heading up the mountain. However, on his way to meet them, Elisha’s jeep did not complete one of the turns on the winding road and became stuck in the surrounding snow. Debbie and Karen, who was mid-term with our future son, Ken, climbed up the mountain with Elisha. They found a very acceptable tree; it awaited my arrival, later in the day, with our microbus. We never cut down another tree for Christmas.

However, we did make it back to the Huggins’ log house on Moose Mountain. In April 1963, I was scheduled to present a research paper at the annual meeting of biochemists held in Atlantic City. Karen’s “due date” was over a week away, according to her obstetrician. When I received a telephone message at my hotel on April 18, I was sure friends from Hanover were pulling a prank at my expense. When I finally spoke with Karen, I learned I was the father of a newborn son. I felt like turning cartwheels on the Boardwalk. Lucile had to deliver my research paper, as I drove rapidly back to Hanover. Karen was in Mary Hitchcock Hospital. Debbie was staying with the Huggins’ family on Moose Mountain. We were finally united and ready for the next set of surprises for our expanded family.

As a native Ohioan, I had never planned on moving cross-country from New England to the Pacific Northwest. The potential of a European life for a few years in The Netherlands was also never envisioned during those days at McKinley High School. In fact, nothing which actually occurred in my professional or personal life was foreseeable in those early years. None of my formal job interviews turned into a reality in my life. Everything seemed merely “to have happened.” Put another way: my life has been the result of “Deus vult – God wills it.”

In the spring of 1963, following Ken’s birth, I looked for future positions for employment. Although my desire was to remain in academics, I had to consider possible career alternatives. A job in either pharmaceutical or chemical industries could not be dismissed out-of-hand. It was worthwhile for me to travel to the meetings of the American Chemical Society, held that year in Cincinnati, to see what might be available.

Most of the positions available for interviews were for other postdoctoral fellowships. There were practically none for faculty appointments in Chemistry or Biochemistry departments. There were only a few openings for those who wanted to continue in “basic” research. After all, industry was industrial, and Proctor and Gamble made cleaning supplies.

One interview that went very well for me did seem to have a focus on fundamental biochemistry. It was with an organization called the Dugway Proving Company. I actually accepted a tentative position at a very good salary. It was not until I had returned to Dartmouth that I had the opportunity to check more closely into this agency. The Internet of the future was certainly not available. It took some effort to confirm that this company was associated with the Dugway Proving Grounds of Utah, which had a deep interest in the development of weapons for biological and chemical warfare. I called them back and told them I was no longer interested in the position they had offered me. A career at Dugway would have resulted, indeed, in a fundamental change in my life.

Instead, I pursued the position with Tsoo E. King at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. In July 1963, Karen and our two kids packed into our microbus, with all of our readily transportable belongings, for a long drive from New England to the Pacific Coast. The rest of our stuff was to be sent as a small load later on, hopefully, without another encounter with skunks. We stopped off in Ohio to visit relatives. It was not until early fall that we actually saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Having driven cross-country in the heat of midsummer, we were content to remain in the cooler Willamette Valley for a while before driving over the Cascades to the Oregon coast.

We had rearranged our microbus to accommodate our cross-country trek by repositioning its middle seat to allow for the space to be filled with a play pen for Deb and Ken. Those were the days when restraining car seats for children were never considered. As a youngster, I had ridden in the back-bed of Uncle Joe’s truck. It had been fun to bounce around. Our two would have a playful time in the center of our microbus.

The trunk-section of our vehicle was loaded with a tent for camping our way along the trail leading to Oregon. That worked until we discovered camping under the stars had not really changed much from those early pioneer days. Once we passed Minnesota, we found each formal campground consisted of a site with two trees, one of which I always backed into as we attempted to settle down at the end of each day’s journey. We quickly switched to staying in inexpensive motel rooms between the Dakotas and the Coast.

Somehow, we managed to see the four Presidents in the Black Hills and an eruption of Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park. On the other hand, it was my own personal eruption we awaited each afternoon. I did omit it for one day, until Karen urged me to get it over with so we could look forward to the remainder of the day’s passage.

The limited engine power of a loaded microbus gave us ample opportunity to see the magnificent views as we crawled over the Rocky Mountains. We marveled at how those original travelers of the Oregon Trail had spent day upon day, with the mountains seeming to remain always at the same distance, until, suddenly, the pioneer was surrounded by them. The roads still had to wind around obstacles, but marvelous images came into sight as each turn was completed.

At last, we entered our new home-state. It’s no wonder that the lava fields of Oregon were used by the astronauts for practicing moon landings. There may be no greater desolate areas than those we saw as we finally entered the state. A magnificent consolation for the frozen lava fields came shortly afterwards. The fragrances of pine forests drifted into the open windows of our slowly moving vehicle. Modern cars can no doubt make the exodus in air-conditioned comfort, but there were great advantages driving a microbus filled with a family who was young enough to appreciate a new beginning, far from the routine of old New England, as we breathed in a new atmosphere.